Artificial Photosynthesis: State of the Art Technology for Producing Fuels

These days, the world has so many numbers of carbon dioxide airborne. Surprisingly, the existence of carbon dioxide has made the Earth’s atmosphere covered and generates the warmer temperature. The climatic change consequently causes the melting of several ice blocks either in North and South poles. There is nothing to cause that but the over-using of fossils fuels.

Therefore, to reduce the effects occurred by the fossil fuels throughout, many scientists believe we should have utilized the carbon dioxide itself. This idea was thrown out from the natural photosynthesis commenced by the plants. By taking advantage from solar energy, we can flow it through the wire and produce the electricity which is needed to start the redox reaction with catalysts. So, the photovoltaic materials as the absorber for photon and the water as the raw material.

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Apparently, the fabrication of fuels based on photosynthesis methods is easier to do in producing the hydrogen. Instead of reducing the Carbon dioxide so that we could have the hydrocarbon fuels, water hydrolyzing is considered as the safety utilization even though the energy used is so big. However, the photovoltaic and splitting water processes can be integrated into single system named photovoltaic/ electrolysis. Okay, the results will be hydrogen which is flammable and green fuel since its waste product is water. But, is it efficient?

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Recent studies have suggested that this sophisticated technology in harvesting the hydrogen fuels are more economical and greener than the newest methods such biomass. Advanced study showed the photovoltaic-electrolysis devices had provided achievable fuels based on laboratory scale which means the efficiency of energy harvested from solar to fuels or STF is stable. For instance, the same principle by combining the photovoltaic and catalysts which are deposited in the surface of the solar materials produced efficiency from 12 to 30 per cent depends on the semiconductor absorbers installed*.

The studies have shown that the production of hydrogen as fuels from solar energy is a real thing. It is not a dream which can be achieved in the next few hundred years. Absolutely, today we are able to maintain a sustainable energy in form of hydrogen fuels. But, why did not happened in many countries? The problem is not about the principle or method because we need that in a larger scale. That means, the production was in laboratory scale so the application in the industrial scale needs many considerations including the amount of catalysts, the stability of producing hydrogen in large numbers and the economic expenses.

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All in all, the product from solar-to-fuel technology is hydrogen which is green fuels because its waste products are water when reacting in machinery. It is a green and sustainable fuel but needs advanced experiments in producing the large scale.

*Khaselev, O. & Turner, J. A monolithic photovoltaic-photoelectrochemical device for hydrogen production via water splitting. Science 280, 425–427 (1998)// Licht, S. et al. Efficient solar water splitting, exemplified by RuO 2 –catalyzed AlGaAs/Si photoelectrolysis. J. Phys. Chem. B 104, 8920–8924 (2000)// Bonke, S. A., Wiechen, M., MacFarlane, D. R. & Spiccia, L. Renewable fuels from concentrated solar power: towards practical artificial photosynthesis. Energy Environ. Sci. 8, 2791–2796 (2015)// Fujii, K. et al. Characteristics of hydrogen generation from water splitting by polymer electrolyte electrochemical cell directly connected with concentrated photovoltaic cell. Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 38, 14424–14432 (2013)// Akihiro, N. et al. A 24.4% solar to hydrogen energy conversion efficiency by combining concentrator photovoltaic modules and electrochemical cells. Appl. Phys. Express 8, 107101 (2015)// Jia, J. et al. Solar water splitting by photovoltaic-electrolysis with a solar-to- hydrogen efficiency over 30%. Nat. Commun. 7, 13237 (2016).