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How Artificial Leaves Could Generate Clean Hydrogen
An anonymous reader writes "At Imperial College London, researchers have embarked on a £1m project to study, and eventually mimic, photosynthesis. Part of the 'artificial leaf' project involves working out exactly how leaves use sunlight to make useful molecules. The team then plans to build artificial systems that can do the same to generate clean fuels such as hydrogen and methanol. These would then be used in fuel cells to make electricity or to directly power super-clean vehicles."
Not news. Fark.
I hereby announce that I am studying how bees fly. I plan on creating a bee suit to let 300 pound people fly.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It staggers the mind to think of the amazing technological advances we've made but we still haven't taken the time to unlock the secrets of photosynthesis. Given environmental concerns, I thought this would have been done a long time ago.
The down side:
Biology will get even HARDER.
Photosynthesis has traditionally been one of the "hard" problems to solve. These guys are going to figure it out for 1 million pounds and then use it to produce fuel? I'll put my money on cold fusion first.
If we combine this with the efforts on artifical tress that generate energy from solar and kenetic motion (http://www.solarbotanic.com/) then we would have a perfect energy ecosystem.
My only concern would be how flammable these tress would be? Remember, only you can prevent forrest fires... (grin)
David
From World of Molecules:
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, carbinol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CH3OH (often abbreviated MeOH). It is the simplest alcohol, and is a light, volatile, colourless, flammable, poisonous liquid
Sounds like a carbon-based fuel to me. Not sure why it's considered "clean". But at least we're not digging the carbon out of the bowels of the earth before we spew it into the sky.
So, if this works, would we then have whole artifical forests creating hydrogen and methanol? How safe would these things be? I imagine a forest would require access to sunlight, but it's somewhat difficult to have proper safeguards on a place that has a big window in it. And with these "trees" being full of methanol/hydrogen, one spark or too MUCH sun/heat and the whole place goes up like a bomb.
I knew an environmental engineer once who told me plants are actually inefficient at converting energy... Maybe he was mistaken, anyone know? Besides doesn't this already exist? I thought Solar panels generated electricity that could be used to charge batteries or produce hydrogen.
Ummm, hasn't this been tried many of times?? Why is this news?? It's not, it is some scientists trying to get more hype to be able to justify the 1 million pounds they are requesting. Unless they have an insight that all the other scientists in this world don't, then this is just a waste of money.
We are using SMALL amounts of alcohols in our fuels to oxygenate the burning. Problem comes in when it is the primary form of fuel. Then you will ALWAYS have partial burning. As you point out, ethanols are converted into a number of side products which includes aldahydes. In small amounts, overall not a big deal (though still not great). But in large amounts These are ABSOLUTELY WICKED.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It isn't always a good idea to copy nature exactly.
Think about the 'natural' process for creating oil: Take millions of plants using photosynthesis to create carbon based material. Run for millions of years, accumulating the product. Then put a mountain on top of it, shove it deep under the Earth. Apply tremendous heat and pressure for millions of years more. Remove mountain top and extract.
So even if we are able to copy photosynthesis, what does it get us? We use energy several hundred million times faster than nature collects it.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Let me know when there's a large jet that runs off hydrogen, solar, or electric.
Nice job moving the goalpost. It used to be "airplanes", now it's airliners.
But it's irrelevant. Airplanes need thrust. They get thrust from engines. Today's commercially-available engines burn fossil/carbon fuels, but in no way does that prevent us from putting a different engine on future planes.
Seems a bit daft to create methane and other organic molecules using sunlight, and then burn the methane to make hydrogen for use a fuel cells! If methane is produced, then why not burn it directly for maximum efficiency. Or convert methane into a heavier, gasoline-like molecule to burn in a conventional engines.
Yeah, that will work, those Union Thugs will beat you up first and then you will wish we had Socialized Medicine here.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Let's get rid of the unions and increase prosperity by giving jobs to China.
1. Give jobs to China
2. ????
3. Profit (for rich people only)
I can't find a reference to it, but I saw a segment on a TV show (I think "Your Green Life", which according to the local station, is nationally syndicated) about a company that was already working on a device that mimicked photosynthesis. I seem to remember the device looks sort of like venetian blinds.
Does anybody else remember seeing that segment or have more info about that company?
Mimicking photosynthesis for hydrogen and methanol fuel generation is obviously a fascinating notion, but I question how feasible it might be on a production scale, considering the surface area needed, as given by the article: 0.16%. My first thought was: "Is that all?"
If my math is correct, 0.16% of 510,072,000km2 (the surface area of Earth) is 816,115.2km2. That's larger than the state of Texas. So, this proposal may well be something which is humanly achievable. But I wonder how realistic it is. And whether or not there are precedents for "papering" the Earth on such a scale. And why highly speculative, alternative energy science is so often "pressured" by the mainstream press to be capable of entirely replacing all current forms of energy, in order to be relevant for publication.
Since civilization currently uses various power generation methods to meet its needs, maybe looking for a single, new method to replace 20 terawatts (I'm assuming TFA meant terawatt-hours per year) is setting the bar a little high.
Just read TFA and it looks like the project's goal is not to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but to find out how to use sunlight as an energy source to synthesize molecules.
Over here, across the pond, we've got a team of Yanks already working on the other side of the carbon equation: Artificial leaves to capture CO2 from the air. And, in typical Yank fashion, its being done by private enterprise.
They were featured recently on Nova ScienceNow.
This is obviously a fascinating concept, but I wonder how realistic its chances of succeeding are. As well as what "success" would actually mean. If my math is correct, 0.16% of Earth's surface area (510,072,000 sq. km) is 816,115.2 sq. km. That's larger than the state of Texas, and sounds like a lot of artificial leaves. As for defining success, today, civilization relies on various methods of generating the power it needs. Yet the mainstream press continue to often "pressure" highly speculative energy science projects to replace all 20 terawatts (did the author of TFA actually mean terawatt hours per year, or..?) the world is going to need in the next 20 years, in order to be relevant for publication. Seems to be setting the bar a little high, wouldn't you agree?
Your write: " only part of sunlight is photosynthetically active." I think you mean that, under normal conditions, photosynthesis uses only a part of the solar spectrum. If an artificial process uses sunlight as the energy source, the efficiency varies widely depending on the process used.