The European Union has developed a new type of "artificial leaves" to convert carbon dioxide and water into fuel, with a record energy conversion rate.
CTOnews.com, March 19, according to the Science and Technology Daily, the EU "A-LEAF" project team recently published an innovation in the journal Energy and Environmental Science. They have developed an "artificial leaf" system that simulates photosynthesis in nature and converts carbon dioxide and water into renewable fuels. The solar-fuel conversion efficiency of the system has reached 10%, setting a new record. This is an order of magnitude higher than the conversion efficiency of natural leaves and provides a sustainable solution for energy transformation.
The A-LEAF project aims to develop artificial photosynthetic devices (artificial leaves), the research team said. The use of "artificial leaves" to directly convert carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into valuable fuels and chemicals is one of the biggest challenges in energy transformation. Previously developed "artificial leaves" require expensive raw materials, and there are some problems such as poor system stability and performance.
According to CTOnews.com, for the first time, the new device has achieved both hydrogen production and hydrogen storage formate, which can release hydrogen when there is no sunlight. Therefore, the latest equipment for the first time to achieve the use of "artificial leaves" device for continuous hydrogen production. The research team used compact electrochemical flow cells and integrated with low-cost silicon-based photovoltaic modules to verify the system.
The research team says the study paves the way for the integration of "artificial leaves" systems in future energy scenarios and provides a sustainable solution to the major challenge of transforming current centralized energy models into distributed alternative energy sources.
The researchers plan to expand the scale of the system to prove its industrial feasibility, with the ultimate goal of building an "artificial tree".
