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Artificial Photosynthesis: Learning How to Generate Energy from Plants
Over billions of years, plants, most algae, and some types of bacteria have perfected turning carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight into usable forms of energy. Now scientists think they can replicate this process efficiently enough to perhaps usher in a paradigm shift in clean, sustainable energy production.
In a paper recently published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Illinois developed a method involving gold nanoparticles to mimic photosynthesis, in the end producing liquid fuels such as propane, methane, ethylene, among others.
Once this technique is further developed, it could provide the world with an entirely carbon-neutral method of energy production, as well as provide benefits that typical methods of solar collection can’t.
In particular, photovoltaic cells, the kind commonly found in solar panels, create electricity that must be used immediately, which results in grid-level problems like what is seen in the duck curve. Also, energy produced like this must be converted to a…
