artificial photosynthesis Archives – The Green Optimistic

Bionic Leaf Turns Light Into Liquid Biofuel

Mila Luleva — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 19:56:42 +0000

Scientists at Harvard developed a bionic leaf that can convert light into biomass more efficiently than nature, and then make biofuel. Artificial photosynthesis has been in the spotlight for quite some time. Typically it is associated with splitting the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen via some sort of a solar technology. The produced hydrogen […]

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Device Reduces Carbon Dioxide with Bacteria and Nanowires

Guest Contributor — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 17:20:20 +0000

A scientist from University of California, Berkeley, came up with a bright idea on carbon dioxide reduction by mimicking photosynthesis. This is in the person of Peidong Yang, a nanomaterials chemist, who focuses his study on a better approach of artificial photosynthesis in the lab. The process of photosynthesis is hard to imitate in the […]

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Scientists Use Photosynthesis as Source of Solar Energy

Annika Tostengard — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 06:35:29 +0000

Australian researchers have found a new way to use a very old source of solar energy. Plants have been converting sunlight into energy for millions of years, and the team at Monash University in Melbourne have built a device that can do the same thing. The photosynthetic device is even more efficient than traditional solar […]

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New Artificial Photosynthesis at UC Uses Nanowires and Bacteria

Satya Sivani — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 12:42:52 +0000

Scientists from the University of California have developed a process of artificial photosynthesis using nanowires and bacteria. Many studies have been made to develop artificial photosynthesis with the ultimate aim of producing ‘solar fuel’, a fuel that can be made purely out of water, sunlight and the abundant carbon dioxide available in our ever depleting […]

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Artificial Photosynthesis Soon Coming to a Plant Near You?

Ari Luis — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 06:17:40 +0000

I’m not sure if there are a lot of fans of artificial plants, or of astroturf, but researchers from Yale are making artificial photosynthesis a reality. As reported in Nature Communications, PhD student Staff Sheehan and his team have come up with an iridium catalyst for water oxidation that can do the trick. The molecular […]

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Solar Biofuel Generator Developed at Harvard

Mila Luleva — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 18:02:07 +0000

Scientists from Harvard have managed to build an advanced biofuel generator. Using biotechnology and genetic engineering, the team created artificial photosynthesis and converted sun rays into liquid fuel. People tend to think that a solar powered car is the one that has panels fitted on its roof. Of course, they will be right, but many would be […]

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Scientists Use Solar Panels to Extract CO2 from the Atmosphere

Mila Luleva — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 18:02:18 +0000

Greenhouse gas emissions have been identified as the major cause of global warming, and even if these are brought down to zero as of this moment, it is unlikely that the predictions for the near future will change. Scientists have come up with numerous geo-engineering techniques to directly extract CO2 from the atmosphere, but for now, most just […]

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Hydrogen Fuel Production Costs Could Decrease with New Materials

Benji Jerew — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 13:33:11 +0000

As automakers improve their technology to reduce emissions, one technology that’s slowly coming to fruition is the hydrogen fuel cell. The fuel itself is another matter. In fact, we’ve seen a number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle prototypes, some of which could be on the road as soon as 2015, in spite of the fact […]

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Rust Boosts Artificial Photosynthesis, Scientists Find

Leigh Hutchens — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 02:30:52 +0000

In an article published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, chemists at Boston College detailed their breakthroughs in developing a way to harness artificial photosynthesis by narrowing the voltage gap between oxidation and reduction. The team achieved the gains by coating hematite, an iron oxide similar to rust, and nickel iron oxide. They were able to […]

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Artificial Photosynthesis Could Generate Hydrogen Fuel

Benji Jerew — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:42:38 +0000

Hydrogen could be the perfect zero-emissions fuel, if only the generating process could eliminate its carbon-footprint. There are a couple of ways to produce hydrogen for use in hydrogen fuel cell or even internal combustion engined vehicles, but they are not without their quirks. Electrolysis splits the hydrogen and oxygen from water molecules, but unless […]

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Artificial Photosynthesis Research Survives Through Innovation Hub Strategy

Janina Lazo-Cruz — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:33:23 +0000

In the thick of US government’s budget cuts for energy innovation efforts, research on artificial photosynthesis that aims to utilize sunlight in generating liquid fuels continues on progressing and receiving government funding through innovation hub investment strategy. Innovation hubs are multidisciplinary research centers that concentrate on providing solutions to persisting challenges by combining scientific research […]

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Panasonic Replicates Efficiency of Plant Photosynthesis

Maria Reyes — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:48:33 +0000

Researchers from Panasonic Corp replicate the ability of plants to use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to form organic compounds, with the same efficiency. Artificial photosynthesis will soon be a viable technology to produce a wide array of organic materials. The solar efficiency of the system is 0.2 percent, the same efficiency of plants that […]

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UCLA Scientists Produce Cheap Fuel from Solar Power and CO2

Ovidiu Sandru — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:05:30 +0000

Running an electric car on electricity is something pretty common (and logical), but running a gasoline car on electricity is something of fantastic realm. Still, a team of UCLA scientists have succeeded doing this – they produced high-grade alcohol by using electricity and fueled an internal combustion engine with it. “The current way to store […]

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Turning Sunlight Into Hydrogen Directly By Using Spinach-Derived Proteins

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:46:19 +0000

A system that converts the energy of sunlight directly into hydrogen has been discovered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Scientists there have managed to design what they call a "biohybrid photoconversion system," which consists in the interaction of plant proteins responsible with photosynthesis and a synthetic polymer they created.

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Self-Repairing, Leaf-Mimicking Solar Cells Invented by MIT Scientists

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:33:49 +0000

A new and effective way of harnessing solar power comes from the researchers at MIT. Once again trying to mimic the way green plants work, the scientists now have a different approach, pointing to the fact that, otherwise invisible, the effects of sunlight over solar cells are often damaging.

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A New Research Center to Develop Methods of Generating Fuel from Sunlight

Mike Sandru — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:07:44 +0000

A new research center in California is about to be established after the U.S. Department of Energy has invested $122 million. Researchers from the new center will try to find ways of generating fuels made by using sunlight. The project will be led by a team of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Caltech.

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Hopes for Solar-Powered Hydrogen by New Virus-Based Artificial Photosynthesis System

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:52:34 +0000

A team of researchers from the MIT, led by Professor Angela Belcher, used a modified virus as a biological scaffold for assembling the nanoscale components needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The bacterial virus is called "M13", and it's said to be harmless.

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Stolen Electrons from Green Alga Demonstrate New Kind of Organic Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:02:13 +0000

WonHyoung Ryu at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, working with overseas colleagues from Stanford, found an interesting way of hybridization between a green alga, Chlamydomonas, and gold nanowires, to directly collect the electrons produced through photosynthesis by the plant.

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Artificial Photosynthesis Could Power Homes on a Bottle of Water

Mike Sandru — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:25:40 +0000

MIT chemist Dan Nocera claims that with just one bottle of drinking water and four hours of sunlight, he can generate 30 KWh of electric energy, being enough to power an entire home. This process consist in a a cobalt-based catalyst that uses solar energy to split water and produce hydrogen.

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Extremophile Bacteria Transform CO2 and Light Into Fuel Better Than Photosynthesis

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:11:56 +0000

Someone has to fund experiments in this world, to accelerate the rhythm of their success, and that is currently ARPA-E. The “electrofuels” program is something they have been focusing on lately. The idea behind electrofuels is finding methods of producing biofuels with an efficiency higher than that of photosynthesis, using plants and algae. Extremophiles are […]

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Hydrogen Created by Artificial Photosynthesis Process

Cristi — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:12:59 +0000

A team of scientists from the University of Rochester has a tough mission creating a hydrogen fuel cell that not only burns cleanly but the fuel itself has to be created from clean sources. They have developed a process that uses artificial photosynthesis and nanotubes to finalize this project.

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Synthetic Leaves Performing Artificial Photosynthesis

Mike Sandru — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:30:08 +0000

A team of scientists at MIT and Michigan along with researchers at the University of California have discovered that artificial photosynthesis could produce electric energy.

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Scientist Mimicking Green Plants to Create Efficient Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:01:03 +0000

Although no specific details are given, from an article published in Science Daily it seems that prof. Pavlos Lagoudakis at the University of Southampton has developed a new method of converting light into electricity using a process found in green plants' photosynthesis.

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Artificial Photosynthesis Succeeded Using Gold "Leaves"

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:53:51 +0000

Kane Jennings and Peter Ciesielski, along with a team of scientists from the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, have been working to create the world's first artificial leaf, that can do what natural leaves do: capture the light. More, their leaves transform that light into electricity. So, the nature's 3.5 billion years work is now to be synthesized in a lab experiment. Here's how they do it.

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