LONDON: Melbourne researchers say it may only be a matter of years before the artificial leaf is fuelling every community, house and car on the planet.
The machine they have designed relies on a so-far largely untapped fuel source — hydrogen — and draws heavily on the plant process of photosynthesis, in which a plant converts sunlight into energy.
“We have to learn as much as we can from photosynthesis, which is what goes on in leafy plants, because that’s where most of our energy comes from in terms of fossil fuels or current kinds of carbon materials that we use either as food or fuel,” said Professor Doug MacFarlane from Monash University’s School of Chemistry.
Photosynthesis is nature’s most efficient way to make fuel.
“If we can learn what plants do with sunlight and use it to make carbon compounds, then we can potentially make artificially produced fuels for all of the reasons we need fuels currently,” Professor MacFarlane said.
Over the years, other researchers have used a variety of metals as an artificial catalyst for the process, but many were rare and expensive.
By using nickel as the catalyst, Professor MacFarlane and his colleagues have been able separate hydrogen from water at a reasonable cost.
“Obviously the devices we’re talking about are expensive to build and install,” he said.
“So the efficiency in terms of producing fuel that it achieves has to be fairly high to make it worthwhile.”
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