{"id":114723,"date":"2022-08-30T07:35:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T05:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=114723"},"modified":"2022-08-25T09:25:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T07:25:48","slug":"floating-artificial-leaves-ride-the-wave-of-clean-fuel-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/floating-artificial-leaves-ride-the-wave-of-clean-fuel-production\/","title":{"rendered":"Floating \u2018artificial leaves\u2019 ride the wave of clean fuel production"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Dr. Virgil Andrei \u00a9<\/strong> University of Cambridge<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, designed ultra-thin, flexible devices, which take their inspiration from photosynthesis \u2013 the process by which plants convert sunlight into food. Since the low-cost, autonomous devices are light enough to float, they could be used to generate a sustainable alternative to petrol without taking up space on land.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outdoor tests of the lightweight leaves on the River Cam \u2013 near iconic Cambridge sites including the Bridge of Sighs, the Wren Library and King\u2019s College Chapel \u2013 showed that they can convert sunlight into fuels as efficiently as plant leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time that clean fuel has been generated on water, and if scaled up, the artificial leaves could be used on polluted waterways, in ports or even at sea, and could help reduce the global shipping industry\u2019s reliance on fossil fuels. The results<\/a> are reported in the journal Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar, have become significantly cheaper and more available in recent years, for industries such as shipping, decarbonisation is a much taller order. Around 80% of global trade<\/a>is transported by cargo vessels powered by fossil fuels, yet the sector has received remarkably little attention in discussions around the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Floating artificial leaf on the River Cam near St John’s College, Cambridge \u00a9<\/strong> University of Cambridge<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For several years, Professor Erwin Reisner\u2019s research group<\/a> in Cambridge has been working to address this problem by developing sustainable solutions to petrol which are based on the principles of photosynthesis. In 2019, they developed an artificial leaf<\/a>, which makes syngas \u2013 a key intermediate in the production of many chemicals and pharmaceuticals \u2013 from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earlier prototype generated fuel by combining two light absorbers with suitable catalysts. However, it incorporated thick glass substrates and moisture-protective coatings, which made the device bulky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9<\/strong> University of Cambridge<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArtificial leaves could substantially lower the cost of sustainable fuel production<\/strong>, but since they\u2019re both heavy and fragile, they\u2019re difficult to produce at scale and transport,\u201d said Dr Virgil Andrei from Cambridge\u2019s\u00a0Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry<\/a>, the paper\u2019s co-lead author.<\/p>

\u201cWe wanted to see how far we can trim down the materials these devices use, while not affecting their performance,\u201d said Reisner, who led the research. \u201cIf we can trim the materials down far enough that they\u2019re\u00a0light enough to float<\/strong>, then it opens up whole new ways that these artificial leaves could be used.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For the new version of the artificial leaf, the researchers took their inspiration from the electronics industry, where miniaturisation techniques have led to the creation of smartphones and flexible displays, revolutionising the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge for the Cambridge researchers was how to deposit light absorbers onto lightweight substrates and protect them against water infiltration. To overcome these challenges, the team used thin-film metal oxides and materials known as perovskites, which can be coated onto flexible plastic and metal foils. The devices were covered with micrometre thin, water-repellent carbon-based layers that prevented moisture degradation. They ended up with a device that not only works, but also looks like a real leaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis study demonstrates that artificial leaves are compatible with modern fabrication techniques, representing an early step towards the automation and up-scaling of solar fuel production,\u201d said Andrei. \u201cThese leaves combine the advantages of most solar fuel technologies<\/strong>, as they achieve the low weight of powder suspensions and the high performance of wired systems.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Tests of the new artificial leaves showed that they can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, or reduce CO2<\/sub> to syngas. While additional improvements will need to be made before they are ready for commercial applications, the researchers say this development opens whole new avenues in their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Virgil Andrei \u00a9<\/strong> University of Cambridge<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSolar farms have become popular for electricity production;\u00a0we envision similar farms for fuel synthesis<\/strong>,\u201d said Andrei. \u201cThese could supply coastal settlements, remote islands, cover industrial ponds, or avoid water evaporation from irrigation canals.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cMany renewable energy technologies, including solar fuel technologies, can take up large amounts of space on land, so moving production to open water would mean that\u00a0clean energy and land use aren\u2019t competing with one another<\/strong>,\u201d said Reisner. \u201cIn theory, you could roll up these devices and put them almost anywhere, in almost any country, which would also help with\u00a0energy security<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Cambridge Trust, the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Virgil Andrei and Erwin Reisner are Fellows of St John\u2019s College, Cambridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Virgil Andrei et al. \u2018<\/em>Floating perovskite-BiVO4 devices for scalable solar fuel production<\/em><\/a>.\u2019 Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038\/s41586-022-04978-6<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, designed ultra-thin, flexible devices, which take their inspiration from photosynthesis \u2013 the process by which plants convert sunlight into food. Since the low-cost, autonomous devices are light enough to float, they could be used to generate a sustainable alternative to petrol without taking up space on land. Outdoor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Researchers have developed floating \u2018artificial leaves\u2019 that generate clean fuels from sunlight and water, and could eventually operate on a large scale at sea","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[18418,12366,13634,14055,10642],"supplier":[20444,1311],"class_list":["post-114723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-cleanfuels","tag-fuels","tag-photosynthesis","tag-renewableenergy","tag-solarfuel","supplier-nature-journal","supplier-university-of-cambridge-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114723"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=114723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}