Another Artificial Leaf – But Significantly Different

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

We’ve seen several videos like this, a setup resembling a stomach distress remedy fizzing away and giving off bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen.  Dr. Daniel Nocera first created the idea of an artificial leaf, and several others have followed his lead and refined the process, which mimics nature’s leaves in converting sunlight to energy. The U. S. Department of energy’s (DOE’s) Energy Innovation Hub, established at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) and its partnering institutions, has a main goal of creating “a cost-effective method of producing fuels using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.”  Artificial photosynthesis has been tried in several variants, but researchers at Caltech and its Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) now claim to have developed “the first complete, efficient, safe, integrated solar-driven system for splitting water to create hydrogen fuels.” Nate Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor, professor of chemistry, and the JCAP scientific director, takes pride in his group’s accomplishment.  “This result was a stretch project milestone …

Turning Over a New Leaf at JCAP

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The blog has covered Professor Daniel Nocera’s “artificial leaf,” a means by which a flat panel in water and exposed to sunlight would generate clean water and hydrogen.  But that promising development has been set aside by the startup company Catalytix that attempted commercial development of the leaf for now.  Instead, the company is now pursuing the design of a practical low-cost flow battery for grid storage. Researchers at Berkeley’s Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), though, may have found a different approach to the artificial leaf that will overcome many shortcomings in its predecessors.  Gary Moore, a chemist and principal investigator with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division, found that in his artificial leaf, “nearly 90-percent of the electrons generated by a hybrid material designed to store solar energy in hydrogen are being stored in the target hydrogen molecules.” In fact, JCAP’s main concern is capturing sunlight and turning it to some form of fuel, exactly what a leaf does …