Berkeley Lab Team Achieves Major Breakthrough In Artificial Photosynthesis

The folks over at Berkeley Lab and the University of California have put their heads together to develop a system that hints at a major breakthrough in the field of artificial photosynthesis. The new hybrid solar-powered system that captures CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions and converts the gas into useful chemical products such as medicinal drugs, bio-degradable plastics, liquid fuels etc. While the nature's photosynthesis process uses sunlight to form carbohydrates from CO2 and water, the new artificial system uses the same combination to synthesise acetate (C2H3O2) a negative ion most essential for biosynthesis.

It's a revolutionary new way to look at the fabrication of chemicals and biofuels, the products that has to be extracted from under the ground. This renewable method by Berkeley and UC researchers came to light when a paper titled “Nanowire-bacteria hybrids for unassisted solar carbon dioxide fixation to value-added chemicals” was published by the team.

Controlling CO2 emissions has been a challenge for scientists for decades with the upsurge of use of fuels and electrical products. Most solutions available today involve isolating carbon before it escapes into the environment, but this demands the captured carbon to be stored. The storage isn't straightforward and it impacts environment in a harmful way. The Berkeley team solves this problem by putting the captured CO2 to good use and thus eliminating the need for it to be stored.

Piedong-Chris-and-Michelle-photosynthesis-lawrence-lab
Peidong Yang, Christopher Chang and Michelle Chang
Lead Researchers In Developing New Artificial Photosynthesis System ​

The proposed system makes use of nanowires (silicon and titanium oxide) to form a 'artificial forest' that harvests solar energy and delivers electrons to bacteria, where CO2 is reduced (using microbes that produce enzyme) and combined with water for the synthesis of various valuables chemical products such as Acetate or similar biosynthetic intermediate, made possible with genetically engineered E.coli. Their research work is proof that by combining the fields of biology and material sciences many new functional devices can be fabricated in the future.

The team's success lies in their nanowire/bacteria hybrid technology which helped them in separating the requirements for efficiency of sunlight-capture and catalytic activity. Mimicking the way leaves synthesize carbohydrates, they achieved a 0.38% solar energy conversion efficiency for ~200 hours under simulated sunlight.

The most interesting part is that, the chemical molecules generated as acetate output of the system includes - 26% butanol (gasoline), 25% amorphadiene (precursor to the anti-maleria drug) and 52% for biodegradable plastic PHB. The team expects the performance to get better as they proceed towards further enhancements of the technology. Their next challenge is to build the 2nd generation system that they expect to have a solar-to-chemical conversion efficiency of 3%.

It seems a long way from here, since for the technology to become commercially viable, they need to reach a conversion efficiency of 10% in a cheap, easy to reproduce mechanism. All we can say is that their initial steps are long leaps forward in the biosynthesis domain. What are your thoughts on that? Share with us in comments below.

Source: Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment - Berkeley Lab – News Center

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