Artificial Photosynthesis

[Daymare17]

Anyone know much about this?

 

1) Does it exist?

 

2) How would/does it work?

 

3) How close are we to achieving it at a reasonable (mass produceable) cost?

 

4) Give me some resources (preferably on the net, but also in print)? Wikipedia has nothing and the first two pages of Google have only a little.

[MattC]

Hmmm... I wonder if you are asking the right question. Why are you interested in artificial photosynthesis?

 

If you are interested in it as a means of turning solar energy into something useful, we have a few types of photovoltaic cells that convert sun energy to electricity. Honestly, I can't think of any good reason to make artificial photosynthesis, as any products we might want are (probably .. but not certainly) already widely available. Photosynthesis is, specifically, how plants turn sunlight into energy to convert atmospheric carbon (carbon dioxide) into organic carbon. We have plenty of sources of organic carbon, in fact the products of photosynthesis are as abundant as plants themselves. But as far as a truly artificial form of photosynthesis, which utilizes sunlight to convert inorganic carbon to organic carbon, I don't think such a thing exists, or if it does it is not in widespread use. I'm sure it could be invented, though - there are chemical reactions that can break carbon-oxygen bonds and rebond the carbon to hydrogen, oxygen, and I suspect many other elements, and a solar panel could be used to generate a current to drive these reactions.

[dttom]

You mean a series of chemical reactions work like the photosynthesis ? Or make use of the principle of photosynthesis to achieve any other aims? I've heard that someone made use of photosynthesis to drive a cell...

[Hamiltor]

I remember reading a while back about research being conducted at MIT utilizing photosynthetic protiens from a spinach leaf in a photoelectric cell.

 

The news article can be found at:

 

http://web.mit.edu/lms/www/news/ScienceNews.html