We condone ideas that show true originality and inventiveness, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched they may sound. Ironically, an extremely original and inventive design based on creating a natural process artificially could revolutionize the world. A door to unlimited power has been opened by artificial photosynthesis, a process that could have us turn away from traditional renewable sources sooner than we have anticipated. Find out today how a research team came one step closer to changing the world.<\/p>\n
Turning away from traditional renewable sources<\/p>\n
The world has been transitioning to renewable energy sources for power for quite some time. This is the result of a global mission to mitigate the effects of global warming. According to the United Nations, renewable energy sources are beneficial because they:<\/p>\n
Address climate change by emitting little to no greenhouse gases
\nOffer economic benefits through job opportunities and reliable, decreased energy costs
\nImprove human health by decreasing air and water pollution associated with fossil fuels<\/p>\n
However, nothing in this world is perfect. According to HEC Hayward, traditional renewable sources have a dark side. In general, they face the following disadvantages:<\/p>\n
High upfront costs
\nThey are significantly dependent on the weather conditions, which impact power output efficiency
\nTheir excess power requires reliable and safe storage
\nPotential environmental impacts like habitat loss
\nIssues with the transmission infrastructure needed to integrate them into the existing grid<\/p>\n
Now, researchers are turning away from traditional sources, as artificial photosynthesis opens a door to limitless power.<\/p>\n
Artificial photosynthesis opens a door to limitless power<\/p>\n
One of the most abundant life forms on the planet is cyanobacteria. This bacteria-type has previously been researched as a renewable energy source, because they have photosynthetic mechanisms, and the resulting energy can be harnessed.<\/p>\n
Artificial photosynthesis is not a new concept, as these colored solar panels also make photosynthesis<\/a>. However, using artificial photosynthesis from bioenergy sources could be revolutionary if we can maximize the energy collection. Now, a University of Cambridge (UK) research team has engineered a 3D printed electrode that increases the energy collection from the bacteria by over an order of magnitude.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a bottleneck in terms of how much energy you can actually extract from photosynthetic systems, but no one understood where the bottleneck was. Most scientists assumed that the bottleneck was on the biological side, in the bacteria, but we\u2019ve found that a substantial bottleneck is actually on the material side.\u201d \u2013 Jenny Zhang, research team leader<\/p>\n Maximizing the energy collection from artificial photozynthesis<\/p>\n The research team realized that the bacteria\u2019s environment had to be optimized, as they require vast amounts of sunlight to grow. They engineered grids of branched electrodes that are 3D printed using metal oxide nanoparticles, resulting in a dense structure that optimizes sunlight accessibility. As the cyanobacteria attached to the electrodes, their electrons from photosynthesis could be extracted to produce power.<\/p>\n According to BioTechniques, this has resulted in increased bioenergy production efficiency compared to other technologies, such as biofuels and other approaches that depend on photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria are also more beneficial when compared to other renewable technologies, as they are low-maintenance and only require water and sunlight to produce power.<\/p>\n They have matched solar conversion efficiencies and proved that a \u2018biohybrid\u2019 approach to solar power generation could be a key aspect in zero-carbon energy generation.<\/p>\n Zhang and her research team\u2019s breakthrough in cyanobacteria photosynthesis is another step forward in the right direction to enhance the sustainability of renewable energy technologies and devices. According to Zhang, further research and development could allow us to tap these \u201cversatile chemical factories\u201d and utilize their power in renewable fuels or chemical production. They could even be integrated into this innovative leaf-shaped solar device that mimics the pattern of nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We condone ideas that show true originality and inventiveness, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched they may sound.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-153744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}