Artificial photosynthesis to produce hydrogen. Artificial photosynthesis
But at the same time, there are several serious obstacles to the further development of the industry. The efficiency of converting sunlight with silicon panels has almost reached its maximum, systems for storing excess electricity are not sufficiently developed (both technologically and in terms of infrastructure), and electrical networks are not ready for their new functions - supplying electricity from dispersed low-power sources.
Therefore, there is an active search for opportunities to take solar energy to a new level - beyond the boundaries of already traditional silicon panels. Many scientists and entrepreneurs are starting to take a closer look at plants.
As long as plants have existed, they have had the ability to convert the energy of sunlight into chemical energy, which fuels their life. Not to mention the ability to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen in this process (which would also be very useful for humanity to recreate).
What's so revolutionary about artificial photosynthesis?
Artificial photosynthesis will allow us to obtain more energy from sunlight and make it possible to effectively accumulate it.
This process will convert sunlight into chemical energy that can be conveniently stored. There will be no by-products like greenhouse gases. On the contrary, the process can utilize carbon dioxide in the same way as plants do.
Plants for this use chlorophyll . It is found in leaves and captures sunlight, and a set of enzymes and other proteins use this light to break down water molecules into hydrogen, electrons and oxygen (protons). The electrons and hydrogen are used to convert the CO2 into nutrients for the plant, and the oxygen is released into the atmosphere.
What is needed for the process to take place? artificial photosynthesis?
To recreate photosynthesis under artificial conditions, two key steps are necessary: the ability collect solar energy, and ability break down water molecules.
But unlike natural photosynthesis, it is necessary that the output is not oxygen, but hydrogen (or another biogas, for example, methane).
Is there some kind of installation where artificial photosynthesis occurs?
There is no such universal installation. Artificial photosynthesis is still an exclusively experimental process and in order to launch it, scientists are using completely different approaches. And all of them are so far only for laboratories. But there is a general concept for the environment in which artificial photosynthesis occurs - "artificial" leaf.
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Examples of installations for artificial photosynthesis
The artificial leaf is where semiconductors and living bacteria are placed and exposed to sunlight. For the first time, an artificial leaf (photosynthetic biohybrid system) was successfully tested not so long ago - in April 2015.
To start the process of artificial photosynthesis in an artificial leaf during that very first experiment, scientists placed all the materials in water, into which they pumped carbon dioxide, while illuminating the entire system with sunlight.
The semiconductors in this process harvest solar energy, generating the charge necessary for the reaction in this solution to take place. The bacterium uses the electrons generated by the semiconductor to convert (or reduce) carbon dioxide molecules, and as a result create liquid fuel - this can be hydrogen, methane, ethanol, etc. At the same time, water is oxidized on the surface of another semiconductor and oxygen is released.
Solar panels have been collecting energy for a long time, and they can also produce hydrogen. Why is it difficult for artificial photosynthesis?
The whole difficulty lies in the splitting of a molecule water - to make sure that electrons are sent to support the chemical process of hydrogen production. Splitting water requires about 2.5 volts of energy. This means that the process requires a catalyst, which will make all the “elements of the equation” move.
But creating an effective catalyst is difficult, and although some of them are quite workable in the laboratory (recently scientists have come to use two catalysts), they turn out to be unsuitable for “field” conditions.
First, a number of compounds used in laboratories contain expensive noble or heavy toxic metals. Secondly, some processes only take place at very high temperatures, or under ultraviolet light, and many of the compounds used quickly lose their catalytic properties. Both are unacceptable for commercial use and large-scale energy production.
What are they doing to solve this problem?
They do a lot of experiments.
First, there are scientists who are developing completely artificial photosynthesis (abiotic). They imitate the natural process, without the involvement of living organisms. By and large, these developments boil down to creating a fundamentally new catalyst, since the existing ones (based on metals such as magnesium, titanium, cobalt, ruthenium, etc.) are far from effective.
Secondly, there are developments that use living organisms (so far only bacteria and individual cells), forcing them to generate energy in the form of hydrogen or other biofuel. Today, this particular direction is considered one of the most promising technologies for the development of artificial photosynthesis. Using living cells expands the scope (beyond the search for a more suitable catalyst) of development, and allows the use of natural, already existing mechanisms. But it involves interfering with the genetic structure of the cell.
How can genetic modifications help generate energy?
In general terms, a living cell is taken, preferably with the ability to photosynthesize, and “functions” for energy production are introduced into it.
For example, the Algenol Laboratory in Florida is conducting such an experiment on cyanobacteria (also capable of photosynthesis, but much easier to genetically interfere with than chloroplast cells in leaves). Scientists have managed to create an autonomously functioning aquatic ecosystem in which cyanobacteria live, genetically modified specifically for ethanol production. This method requires only 1/10 of the area that is needed to produce ethanol from other bioenergy sources (eg, processing corn, or other crops).
It is also possible to synthesize an entire organism from scratch - this is what the J. Craig Venter Institute is working on. Here they want to create a separate new bacterium that will combine the light absorption ability inherent in cyanobacteria with the water splitting ability inherent in other photosynthetic bacteria.
Ideally, the goal of these studies is to create an artificial energy-generating cell from scratch, using the simplest genome. This would allow scientists to select the most useful characteristics from a cell, avoiding genes responsible for other functions that consume excess energy.
How can these GMO panels clean the air?
During the process of photosynthesis, living plants absorb carbon dioxide, convert the carbon into glucose and “consume” it for their life-support needs, and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Through artificial photosynthesis, something similar can be recreated.
A few weeks ago, scientists in Florida reported on their success in using photosynthesis to capture carbon dioxide and then convert it into biofuel. They synthesized a material called a metal-organic framework, which is made of titanium and organic molecules that work as light-catching antennas to capture visible light energy. The material's molecules have a honeycomb-like shape, with voids that can be filled with carbon dioxide through the process of diffusion. But to trigger the reaction of destruction of carbon dioxide, scientists use the blue spectrum of light, as a result of a chemical reaction from CO2, products are obtained that are similar to the natural sugars that plants produce.
Scientists say their technology could eventually be used in power plants to capture carbon dioxide when burning gas.
Scientists from Harvard presented similar technology. The efficiency of converting pure carbon dioxide by this system is 10%, if bacteria capture it from the air - 3-4%.
How to use this “miracle” process? Can it be embedded inside solar panels?
In any case, taking a genetically modified plant in a pot and connecting it to charge your phone will not work. At least for now.
Artificial photosynthesis in any case, even the most efficient, produces hydrogen, which can then be converted into electricity, if necessary. This is good, since hydrogen is much more convenient to store than electricity.
Uncontrolled consumption of fossil resources has brought the world to the threshold of an environmental and energy crisis. In such a situation, a fundamentally different source of energy is needed, which, on the one hand, would fit into our oil world, and on the other, would be renewable, environmentally friendly and economically profitable. A possible solution is artificial photosynthesis (AP), thanks to which man-made installations for the synthesis of organic matter from electricity and light, as well as amazing semiconductor armored photosynthetic bacteria, have already appeared.
Global energy crisis, or why artificial photosynthesis is needed
Today, the already large population of the planet is increasing by 1% annually. Humanity meets its energy needs, which are growing every year, primarily through fossil resources. But it’s no longer a secret that oil and coal reserves are limited and in most cases non-renewable. When their volumes no longer correspond to the global pace of development (or even are used up), the world will face an energy crisis of unprecedented proportions.
Already we can see the fierce struggle that has broken out on the world stage over large sources of fossil fuels. In the future, there will be less and less fuel, and conflicts of interest will occur more and more often.
Over the past two centuries, humanity has been blinded by the availability of fossil energy resources and has developed many technologies based on them, without which life today is simply unthinkable. First there were coal and steam locomotives, then people learned to get electricity by burning the same coal, produce gas stoves, private and public transport - all this requires the consumption of organic substances stored millions of years ago. Using the energy of these substances, humanity has made a leap in many areas of social life: the world population has exceeded 7 billion, thriving cities and states have emerged in deserts, production capacity and consumption levels are increasing year by year. Without a doubt, the modern world is unthinkable without coal, oil products and gas.
This is where the dilemma of modern energy comes into play: on the one hand, the need to switch to renewable energy sources is absolutely obvious, on the other hand, the world is not equipped to consume such energy. However, in the last decade, there has been increasing development of an energy source that could solve this dilemma. We are talking about artificial photosynthesis (IF)- a way to convert solar energy into a convenient form of organic fuel.
We must not forget that fuel combustion leads to massive emissions of CO 2 into the atmosphere, negatively affecting the state of the entire biosphere. In large cities, this influence is especially noticeable: thousands of smoking cars and enterprises create smog, and every city dweller, getting out of the city, first of all admires the fresh air. The creation of an energy source that, like plants, would absorb CO 2 and produce O 2, could stop the environmental degradation going at full speed.
Thus, IF is a potential solution to both the global energy and environmental crises. But how does IF work and how does it differ from natural?
imperfection of greenery
Figure 2. Non-cyclic photosynthesis in plants. An electron leaves the light-excited chlorophyll of photosystem II (PS-II), and the resulting “hole” is filled by electrons released during the splitting of water. The final receiver of electrons is not the pigment of the photosystem, as in purple bacteria, but NADP +. Another difference is that in plants, two photosystems (PS-I and PS-II) form a coupled mechanism, and one cycle of its operation requires the absorption of two photons. The b 6 f complex is not shown in the figure.
The resulting H+ gradient provides energy for ATP synthesis by the enzyme ATP synthase, similar to how falling water provides energy for a water mill (Figure 3). ATP is a universal carrier of chemical energy in the cell and is involved in the vast majority of energy-consuming reactions, including the reactions of the Calvin cycle, which ensure the conversion of CO 2 into reduced organic matter. In this cycle, most of the energy is spent fighting off side reactions. There are other ways of carbon assimilation - for example, the Wood-Ljungdahl path, which will be written about later.
Figure 3. Storing light energy. During photosynthesis, photosystem proteins transfer protons across the membrane using photon energy. The enzyme ATP synthase resets the resulting H + concentration gradient and produces the universal energy carrier in the cell - ATP. The analogy with a rotating water mill is actually very close to reality.
Although photosynthesis ultimately provides the entire biosphere with energy, the efficiency of this process leaves much to be desired (Table 1). The record holder for photosynthesis is sorghum, grown for the production of biofuels, whose efficiency of converting solar energy into chemical energy is 6.6%. For comparison: potatoes, wheat and rice have about 4%.
| Cause of energy loss | Loss of energy | Remainder |
|---|---|---|
| Absorption of photons only in the visible part of the spectrum | 47% | 53% |
| Only part of the light flux passes through the photosynthetic parts of the leaf | 70% | 37% |
| Although there are high- and low-energy photons in visible light, they are all absorbed by photosystems as low-energy ones (a kind of caravan principle) | 24% | 28% |
| Losses during glucose synthesis | 68% | 9% |
| Cleaning leaves from photosynthesis by-products ( cm. photorespiration) | 32% | 6% |
At the same time, the typical efficiency for modern solar cells is 15-20%, and prototypes have reached a value of 46%. This difference in the efficiency of man-made photocells and living plants is explained primarily by the absence of synthesis stages. But there is a more subtle difference: plant photosystems extract energy only from visible light photons with wavelengths of 400–700 nm, and the output from high-energy photons is exactly the same as from low-energy photons. Semiconductors used in solar cells capture photons from a wider spectrum. And to maximize output, a single battery combines materials designed specifically for different parts of the sunlight spectrum.
The ultimate goal of IF engineers is to create a plant (or an artificial organism) that would carry out photosynthesis better than plants. Today, bioengineering has reached a level where it is possible to try to do this. And from year to year, scientists’ attempts are getting closer and closer to their cherished goal, making us marvel at incredible discoveries.
Such a different IF
The simplest IF scheme is completely abiotic synthesis of organic matter on a catalyst. In 2014, a ruthenium catalyst was discovered, which, when illuminated, synthesizes methane from H 2 and CO 2. Under optimal conditions, which include heating to 150 ° C and intense lighting, one gram of this catalyst creates one millimole of methane per hour, which, of course, is very little. The scientists themselves studying the catalyst admit that such a reaction rate, at a fairly high cost of the catalyst, is too low for its practical use.
Real photosynthesis is a multi-stage process, at each stage of which energy loss occurs. This is partly good, because it opens up a lot of scope for optimization. In the case of abiogenic photosynthesis, all that can be done is to come up with a fundamentally new catalyst.
A completely different approach to IF - creation of bioreactors powered by solar energy. In such bioreactors, oddly enough, they use Not photosynthetic microorganisms that can still fix CO 2 using other energy sources.
Let's get acquainted with several types of designs of devices for IF using specific examples.
In 2014, test results were published for an installation that converts current into biomass with a record efficiency of 13%. To get an IF reactor, you just need to connect a solar panel. This installation is essentially an electrochemical cell (Fig. 4 A), where two electrodes are placed in a nutrient medium with bacteria Ralstonia eutropha(they are - Cupriavidus necator). When an external current is applied, the catalyst at the anode splits water into oxygen and protons, and the catalyst at the cathode reduces protons to hydrogen gas. R. eutropha receives energy for the assimilation of CO 2 in the Calvin cycle due to the oxidation of H 2 by the enzyme hydrogenase.
Figure 4. Bioreactors for IF based on electrochemical cells. Current can be generated by photolysis of water at the anode using a solar cell (A) or without it (b) . In both cases, electrons taken from water provide autotrophic microbes with the reducing equivalents necessary for CO 2 fixation.
According to the developers’ calculations, combining their installation with a typical solar battery (18% efficiency) will lead to a total photosynthesis efficiency of 2.5% if all light energy is converted into biomass growth, and 0.7% if genetically modified bacteria that synthesize butanol are used. This result is comparable to the efficiency of photosynthesis in real plants, although it does not reach the level of cultivated plants. Ability R. eutropha synthesizing organics in the presence of H 2 is very interesting not only in the context of IF, but also as a possible application of hydrogen energy.
In 2015, scientists from California created an equally interesting installation, where the stages of light absorption and synthesis are more closely related. The photoanode of the constructed reactor, when illuminated, splits water into oxygen, protons and electrons, which are sent along a conductor to the cathode (Fig. 4 b). To increase the rate of photolysis of water occurring at the interface, the photoanode is made of silicon nanowires, which greatly increase its surface.
The cathode of this installation consists of a “forest” of TiO 2 nanorods (Fig. 5 A), among which bacteria grow Sporomusa ovata. Electrons from the photoanode go specifically to these bacteria, which use them as reducing equivalents to convert CO 2 dissolved in the medium into acetate.
Figure 5. Artificial photosynthesis is unthinkable without nanomaterials. A - In the IF reactor from the CO 2 article, bacteria growing in a “nanoforest” of silicon rods coated with TiO 2 (30 nm layer) are recorded; This nanoforest creates the anaerobic conditions necessary for bacteria and increases the surface density of contact between bacteria and the conductor. b - With a fundamentally different approach, it is not the bacteria that are placed on the semiconductor, but the semiconductor that is placed on the bacteria; Thanks to the CdS shell, bacteria dying in the light become photosynthetic.
TiO 2 nanoforest performs several functions at once: provides a high density of bacteria on contact, protects obligate anaerobic S. ovata from oxygen dissolved in the environment and can also convert light into electricity, helping bacteria fix CO 2.
S. ovata- bacteria with a very flexible metabolism, which easily adapts to growth in the so-called electrotrophic mode. They fix CO 2 through the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, in which only 10% of acetate is used for biomass growth, and the remaining 90% is released into the environment.
But acetate itself is not particularly valuable. To convert it into more complex and expensive substances, genetically modified substances are introduced into the reactor. Escherichia coli, synthesizing butanol, isoprenoids or polyhydroxybutyrate from acetate. Last substance E. coli produces with the highest yield.
As for the efficiency of the entire installation, it is very low. Only 0.4% of solar energy can be converted into acetate, and the conversion of acetate into polyhydroxybutyrate occurs with an efficiency of 50%. In total, only 0.2% of light energy can be stored in the form of organic matter, which can be further used as fuel or raw material for chemical production. The developers consider their main achievement to be that the installation they created can be used for completely different chemical syntheses without fundamental changes in design. This shows an analogy with natural photosynthesis, where all sorts of organic substances are ultimately synthesized from CO 2 3-phosphoglycerate obtained through assimilation.
In both technologies described, developers tried to combine the excellence of semiconductors as absorbers of light energy with the catalytic power of biological systems. And both of the resulting installations were “reverse” fuel cells, where current is used to synthesize substances.
In a fundamentally different approach, individual cells are combined with semiconductors into a single whole. Thus, at the very beginning of 2016, a work was published in which the acetogen bacterium Moorella thermoacetica grown in an environment high in cysteine and cadmium. As a result, it usually dies in the light M. thermoacetica was covered with a shell of CdS (semiconductor) and thereby not only received protection from the sun, but also became a photosynthetic: electrons from CdS entered the Wood-Ljungdahl path (Fig. 5 b).
Experiments on such an “armored” bacterium showed that CO 2 is fixed not only in the light, but also in the dark (subject to the daily cycle). The reason for this is the accumulation of photosynthetic metabolites in the light in such quantities that cells do not have time to process them. The main advantage of such bacteria in comparison with the cells described above is self-organization. For cells, it is necessary to prepare nanomaterials and catalysts in advance, and these parts themselves only wear out over time. When M. thermoacetica photosynthetic units divide, produce and repair everything they need on their own if there is enough cadmium and cysteine in the environment. These bacteria have not yet been studied as a source of fuel, but in terms of the quantum yield of photosynthesis they are not inferior to plants.
Not long to wait...
IF technologies are still at the prototype stage, but their developers see great scope for optimization. You can optimize light-catching semiconductors, microorganisms, the spatial organization of bacteria, and other catalysts. But first of all, the problem of stability must be solved. The efficiency of manufactured installations drops noticeably after just a few days of operation. A fully completed device for IF, like any living system, must regenerate and self-reproduce. In this regard, it is especially interesting M. thermoacetica, to which these properties apply fully.
And although existing samples are far from perfect, work in the field of FI is valuable primarily because it shows the fundamental possibility of integrating solar energy into a world captured by the internal combustion engine. Wind turbines and solar panels, of course, have high efficiency and already almost completely cover the energy consumption in Uruguay and Denmark, and hydroelectric power plants are important nodes in the energy grid of many countries. But replacing fuel with electricity in most cases requires a radical restructuring of energy networks and is not always possible.
Further development of the investment fund requires massive investments. One can imagine that solar cell manufacturing companies, to whom futurists predict world dominance in the field of energy by 2030, will be interested in the development of this still young and inexperienced science at the intersection of bioenergy, materials science and nanoengineering. Who knows, maybe IF will not become an everyday occurrence in the future, or maybe work on it will give impetus to hydrogen energy or biophotovoltaics. We don't have long to wait, wait and see.
Literature
- Population Pyramids of the World from 1950 to 2100. (2013). PopulationPyramid.net;
- Korzinov N. (2007).
Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia
Artificial photosynthesis- attempts to reproduce the natural process of photosynthesis. In this case, under the influence of electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum, water and carbon dioxide are converted into molecular oxygen and glucose. Sometimes artificial photosynthesis refers to the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen under the influence of solar energy.
Research is aimed at implementing a type of photosynthesis associated with the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen. This process is the first stage of photosynthesis in plants (light-dependent phase). Carbon dioxide conversion does not require exposure to light. Hydrogen produced in the first stage of artificial photosynthesis can be used in hydrogen engines to generate “clean” energy.
The light-independent reaction ("dark phase", Calvin Cycle) is the second stage of photosynthesis, during which carbon dioxide is converted to glucose. Glucose is a source of energy that ensures plant growth. It is assumed that this process, reproduced on an industrial scale, will help combat global warming. The light-independent stage of photosynthesis can be used to absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, such a process will require significant energy sources, as occurs during photosynthesis in plants.
Notes
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In the future, people will begin to cover the roofs of their houses with a new metal-organic material, thereby producing energy for the household and purifying the air in the yard.
A team of scientists from the University of Central Florida and Florida State University have created a new material that, when exposed to visible light, converts carbon dioxide into organic matter through artificial photosynthesis.
Attempts to reproduce photosynthesis - the conversion of the energy of sunlight into the energy of chemical bonds - have been made for a long time, but recently they have intensified due to global warming. The fact is that CO 2, which serves as the feedstock for photosynthesis, is second only to water vapor contained in the atmosphere in its contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Photocatalytic properties are known for some non-biological substances, in particular for metal-organic frameworks - crystalline compounds consisting of metals and organic substances. They usually appear under ultraviolet light, which makes up only 4 percent of sunlight. In addition, they usually use extremely expensive metals such as platinum, rhenium and iridium. Because of this, using them for artificial photosynthesis is very expensive. In their work, the scientists decided to use a metal-organic framework based on much more accessible titanium. The organic part essentially acted as an “antenna” to absorb light. By slightly modifying this substance, researchers could change the range of light in which it operates. They decided to adapt it for blue.
To simulate solar lighting, engineers assembled a “photoreactor” - a cylinder covered on the inside with LED strip emitting blue light. A flask with a substance was suspended inside the cylinder, which was blown with carbon dioxide. The scientists' hypothesis was confirmed and part of the CO 2 was converted into organic substances: formate and formamide, which can be considered as solar fuel and used to generate energy.
In the future, scientists are going to increase the efficiency of artificial photosynthesis and the amount of processed CO 2, as well as adapt their material for other ranges of visible light. They also proposed the concept of creating special treatment plants in factories with large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that would process the CO 2 released by production, convert it into energy and return it to the plant.
This is not the first study devoted to artificial photosynthesis. For example, in 2015, scientists created a device that splits water into oxygen and hydrogen in light for hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, and then at MIT they showed a similar device in which the resulting hydrogen and carbon from the air are processed by genetically modified bacteria into liquid fuel. Some researchers prefer not to create artificial photosynthesis machines, but to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants, as an international group of scientists recently did. published
The high efficiency of natural is a definite benchmark in the development of the solar energy industry. However, this natural example of high performance may now be obsolete.
For the first time, scientists have managed to effectively combine chemical electrolysis with the activity of bacteria. The system produces alcohol and other substances literally “out of thin air”
Researchers at Harvard University have created a bionic system that converts and stores solar energy in chemical form using a hybrid mechanism of inorganic materials and living microorganisms. This scheme helps solve two problems at once: 1) conservation, which is produced in excess during daylight hours and which is not enough in the evening; 2) removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere.
The device, called Bionic leaf 2.0, is based on a previous version of the leaf, which was developed by the same team of scientists. The energy-generating system consists of a solar panel sandwiched between sheets of cobalt catalyst and a cell with Ralstonia eutropha bacteria occupying the bottom half of the sheet. When immersed in a vessel of water at room temperature and normal pressure, the artificial leaf simulates photosynthesis. Current from the Bionic leaf 2.0 solar plates is fed to catalysts that split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen then enters the cells of GM bacteria, which are distinguished by the fact that they can combine hydrogen molecules with carbon obtained from the air and convert them into liquid fuel.
The resulting hydrogen could already be used as fuel, but scientists decided to complicate the system to make it more efficient. At the next stage, the bacteria Ralstonia eutropha come into play, feeding on hydrogen and CO2 from the atmosphere. Thanks to these nutrients, the bacterial colony actively increases in size. Among the waste products of microorganisms are various useful chemicals. Scientists have experimented with genetic modification and developed bacteria that produce different types of alcohol (C3 and C4+C5 in the diagrams) and plastic precursors (PHB in the diagrams).
“For this work, we developed a new catalyst based on cobalt and phosphorus that does not produce reactive oxygen species. This allowed us to reduce stress, which led to a sharp increase in efficiency,” comments one of the authors of the work.
Scientists have been trying to grow bacteria on electrodes for decades to force them to take part in a chemical chain of reactions, but various problems have constantly arisen in this process that have prevented them from creating a truly effective system
The main ones of these problems are the leaching of heavy metals from the electrodes, as well as the appearance of oxygen in active form. Both of these processes inhibit the life of happy, healthy bacteria. An important discovery by Harvard chemists was the use of an electrolysis system with a cobalt-based cathode and anode. Essentially, the cathode and anode produce a synergistic effect, representing a self-healing system. If one degrades, the second supplies it with substances, and vice versa.
“I think this is actually quite exciting research,” said Johannes Lischner of Imperial College London. “Converting sunlight into chemical fuels with high efficiency is something of the Holy Grail for renewable energy.”
According to independent experts who are not involved in this study, the scientific work is truly revolutionary. For the first time in history, scientists were able to combine chemical electrolysis with the activity of bacteria with high efficiency of energy conversion and conservation. Work in this direction has been going on since the 1960s.
If you combine this system with conventional solar cells, the CO2 recovery efficiency will be about 10% - this is higher than in natural photosynthesis!
The scientists expect their system of efficient electrolysis to convert energy into liquid fuel will find use primarily in developing countries where there is no developed electrical infrastructure to distribute and store the electricity generated by solar panels during the day.