NEW ARTIFICIAL LEAF DESIGN

New Artificial Leaf Design Could Absorb Far More CO2

We all know that trees are our best friends. They produce oxygen, foods, fuels and so many other things. 

They provide us oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide in this way they keeps us safe from global warming. But now days we destroyed so many trees its creatures a big problem of global warming. 

We need to take some big action to control global warming so Researchers have designed various “artificial leaves”  this process in the hopes that we could use the devices to fight rising greenhouse gas levels. 

DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEAVES :

1:OXYZEN Producing leaves

2:HYDROGEN producing leaves

3: fuel producing leaves

Lab-Bound Leaves

Plants are nature’s air purifiers. They take in carbon dioxide (CO2) and, through photosynthesis , create oxygen and energy.

Researchers have designed various “artificial leaves”  this process in the hopes that we could use the devices to fight rising greenhouse gas levels. But while some of their design work well in the lab, they haven’t translated to the real world.

Now, a team from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) think it’s found a way to bring artificial leaves out of the lab and into a natural environment — and their device could play a major role in cleaning up our air.

According to UIC researcher s :

the problem with existing artificial leaves is that they draw pure CO2 from pressurized tanks in the lab, but in the real world, they need to be able to pull C02 from the air around them.

Pure and Simple

The researchers believe an artificial leaf built around their design would be 10 times more efficient at converting CO2 to fuel than natural leaves. They calculate that 360 of their artificial leaves, each 1.7 meters long and 0.2 meters wide, would generate about half a ton of CO daily.

Spread those leaves out over 500 square meters, and they could reduce the CO2 levels in the air within 100 meters of the space by 10 percent in just one day.

“Our conceptual design uses readily available materials and technology,” Singh said, “that when combined can produce an artificial leaf that is ready to be deployed outside the lab where it can play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

Moving artificial leaves out of the lab and into the air

Artificial leaves mimic photosynthesis — the process whereby plants use water and carbon dioxide from the air to produce carbohydrates using energy from the sun. But even state-of-the-art artificial leaves, which hold promise in reducing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, only work in the laboratory because they use pure, pressurized carbon dioxide from tanks.

But now, researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have proposed a design solution that could bring artificial leaves out of the lab and into the environment. Their improved leaf, which would use carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas — from the air, would be at least 10 times more efficient than natural leaves at converting carbon dioxide to fuel.

Unhooking the pressurized carbon dioxide supply from these leaves means that they must have a way to collect and concentrate carbon dioxide from the air to drive their artificial photosynthetic reactions.

EFFICIENCY OF ARTIFICIAL LEAF 

According to their calculations, 360 leaves, each 1.7 meters long and 0.2 meters wide, would produce close to a half-ton of carbon monoxide per day that could be used as the basis for synthetic fuels. Three hundred and sixty of these artificial leaves covering a 500-meter square area would be able to reduce carbon dioxide levels by 10 percent in the surrounding air within 100 meters of the array in one day.

ARTIFICIAL LEAF DESIGN INDIA 

Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, have developed an artificial leaf that successfully achieves artificial photosynthesis. And what’s more, their process claims to be 100 times more efficient than natural photosynthesis.

The artificial leaf can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to generate fuel and release oxygen in the process, simulating the process of photosynthesis.

IISc’s Solid State Structural Chemistry Unit researchers in the study titled ‘The Quantum Leaf for Artificial Photosynthesis’ have designed and prepared CuAlS2/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) composed of biocompatible, earth-abundant elements, which can reduce salts of carbon dioxide under visible light into oxygen.

Quantum dots are artificial atoms. They are so small that it is effectively concentrated into a single zero-dimensional point. They have a well-defined state of energy in accordance with the quantum theory and are generally made of a semi-conductor like silicon.

Her,e quantum dots act as a catalyst to turn aqueous bicarbonate salt into formate and oxygen under the presence of visible light.

This technology is very new. It is still in initial phase. 

Well, here’s hoping that the  innovation gets into production for a cleaner and greener planet!