Researchers at the University of IL at Chicago have succeeded in developing “artificial leaves” that actually works like natural leaves, it removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but instead of converting it into oxygen, like a natural leaf, it converts it into fuel. In order to make this work, they used a photosynthetic cell, rather than use the usual photovoltaic cells.
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The team has filed a provisional patent for the technology, and said it should be adaptable to both large- and small-scale applications. However, instead of converting fuel into sugar, the “artificial leaf” delivers synthetic gas, or “syngas”, which is a mixture of hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide. Researchers have been looking for a way to convert carbon dioxide into methanol in a single step using energy-efficient processes forNew York: Taking a cue from the mechanism that trees use to convert carbon dioxide into sugars, researchers have found a similar way to turn the gas produced by the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and auto engines into a usable energy source using sunlight.
The idea behind these “artificial leaves” is that, instead of creating electricity and storing it in a battery, they will be able to create energy-dense fuel. Syngas can be burned directly, or converted into diesel or other hydrocarbon fuels.
Such a transportation fuel can be considered as a carbon-neutral energy source because when carbon is removed from the atmosphere to make synthetic gas then no new emissions are produced.
The device acts like a leaf in the tree that captures carbon dioxide that is present in the air.
To achieve the reaction more efficiently, the UIC team turned to a family of nano-structured compounds known as transition metal dichalcogenides. They united the TMDCs with an unorthodox iconic fluid, in the place of an electrolyte, in three-electrode electrochemical cells with two compartments. But unlike leaves’ catalysts, these solar cells have nanoflake tungsten diselende catalyst that is responsible for the device’s chemical change, as reported by Tech Times.
One of the chief challenges of sequestering carbon dioxide is that it is relatively chemically unreactive. But scientists previously relied on silver and other expensive precious metals to break gas into storable energy. We have used 100 square centimeters of the catalyst.
“The active sites of the catalyst get poisoned and oxidized”, Salehi-Khojin said.
The innovation by the team involved using water mixed with the iconic liquid thyl-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate, in equal parts.
“The hydrogen ions diffuse through a membrane to the cathode side, to participate in the carbon dioxide reduction reaction”, Asadi said.
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Salehi-Khojin is optimistic that their system is adaptable to be used at scale in solar farms, but also on a smaller scale and perhaps even on Mars. Not only are they hoping that this type of technology can be scaled up in order to be used with solar farms, but there is even the chance that this could be used on Mars where the planet’s atmosphere is nearly entirely made up of carbon dioxide.
