Photosynthesis

2022: An artificial photosynthesis system has been created for the production of fuel, which is 10 times more efficient than analogues

In November 2022, chemists from the University of Chicago announced the creation of an innovative artificial photosynthesis system, which is an order of magnitude more productive than previous artificial systems. Unlike conventional photosynthesis, which produces carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, artificial photosynthesis can produce ethanol, methane or other fuels.

While it's still a long way off before this method is a way to refuel your car every day, it gives scientists a new direction for research and could be useful in the near term for producing other chemicals. The problem is, according to the researchers, that photosynthesis is built to create carbohydrates that are great for feeding us, but not our cars, which need much more concentrated energy. Scientists seeking to create an alternative to fossil fuels must therefore rearrange the process to create more energy-intensive fuels such as ethanol or methane.

Artificial photosynthesis system created

In nature, photosynthesis is carried out by several very complex complexes of proteins and pigments. They take in water and carbon dioxide, gas break down molecules and rearrange atoms to produce a carbohydrate-long chain of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon compounds. Scientists, however, need to rearrange the reactions to instead obtain another scheme with hydrogen alone surrounding the juicy carbon core - CH4, also known as methane. This realignment is far more complicated than it seems; people have been doing it for decades, trying to get closer to the effectiveness of nature.

The team started with a type of material called an organometallic structure or MOF - a class of compounds made up of metal ions held together by organic binding molecules. They then created MOFs as a single layer to provide the maximum surface area for chemical reactions, and immersed everything in a solution involving a cobalt compound for electron transfer. Finally, they added amino acids to MOFs and conducted experiments to find out what works better. Scientists were able to improve both halves of the reaction: the process of splitting water and the process of attaching electrons and protons to carbon dioxide. In both cases, amino acids contributed to a more efficient reaction.

However, even with vastly improved performance, artificial photosynthesis has a long way to go before it can produce enough fuel for widespread use. The breakthrough can be widely applied to other chemical reactions as well; in order for it to have an effect, it is necessary to produce a lot of fuel, but much smaller amounts of some molecules, for example, starting materials for the production of pharmaceuticals and nylon, can be very useful.^[1]

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