The GOOD 100: Artificial Photosynthesis
- Posted by: David Biello
- on October 17, 2009 at 8:00 am
Fake Plastic Trees
Some 2.4 billion years ago, tiny blue-green algae figured out a neat trick. Using sunshine, water, and carbon dioxide, they produced plant food as well as the oxygen that makes our existence possible. We’re still driving around on the fruits of their labor all these eons later—not to mention turning on the lights, flying into space, and everything else we do with the energy embedded in the fossilized sunshine that is coal, oil, and natural gas.
But plants aren’t all that efficient at harvesting the energy that falls on them as sunlight, so the chemist Daniel Nocera of MIT is trying to mimic photosynthesis, and improve on it. His idea is simple: Split water into hydrogen and oxygen with sunlight, and then recombine them (which creates energy) in a fuel cell when power is needed. The trick is to do both these things cheaply.
Nocera has come up with a way to split water into its constituent elements that is less expensive than the machines used today. But he has yet to show that it can be done on a broad scale.
For now, the future of an artificial leaf that’s as cheap as the real ones may come down to some elementary chemistry: Can scientists find replacements for the expensive and rare metals currently required? Nocera says a “new catalyst” for fuel cells is what’s needed, but he’s hopeful that he’ll find it. He predicts success in less than a decade—or about as long as it takes to grow a tree.
DISCUSSION: 21 Comments
I would love to have an area of fake trees that are able to make hydrogen and oxygen for me
I think there are things in this world that just shouldn’t be messed with… like the purity of our existence. I think a tree is made the way it is, because it’s a tree. People are much too apprehensive of new ideas that change some of the most basic things in life that have worked forever! It’s worked this well this long, why change it? We need to be thinking more about what the long term affects are, rather than putting our names in a history book. You should waste your energy on figuring out how to make plastic more efficient, and heck, bio-degradable. Yet, you’re working on making trees more efficient.. There as a “plastic soup bowl” the size of Texas just off the Hawaiian coast. There is more plastic than plankton… Or, better yet, use your experience to figure out how we can use the sun to make it easier for trees to live…
This is a good futuristic technology to use when temperatures become so hot that leaf burn occurs. As our Sun gets hotter and hotter, leaf burn will become a real problem, especially during hot and dry summers. Municipalities will have to come up with watering programs to prevent forests and trees from dying. During rainy seasons, it won’t be a problem, but dry, hot weather will pose significant dangers.
I agree with jessic_02 “there are things in this world that just shouldn’t be messed with…” for instance the computer and internet. If more people like jeesic_02 would stick to their convictions, they would not use a computer or the un-natural internet. Then, I would not have to see posts by these people and my life would be better. I agree with jessic, if technology does not IMMEDIATELY effect me in a positive way it really should not be looked into. Since my computer and the systems that run my computer and internet service are not bio-degradable and since life has worked forever with out these things, we should all go back to living like we did over 3,000 years ago. I mean really writing, language, technology, all that stuff is for suckers.
i think some of you are missing the point. my goodness. no one is trying to replace trees. they are trying to find a way to reproduce photosynthesis more efficiently. calling it fake plastic trees is just to draw attention! the point is that we destroy trees at a horrifying rate. our atmosphere is unbalanced…too much carbon dioxide. if we could find a way to sythesize this CO2 into oxygen WITHOUT simply waiting for trees to grow, WE ARE ALL BETTER OFF. this is not a story about some guy who wants to make fake trees out of plastic. and it is a bit self-righteous to talk about the purity of existence ON A COMPUTER. we need more oxygen in our atmosphere and less carbon dioxide. if this guy can come up an efficient way to do this, you could see this technology employed in ways that could change the world.
Jess sweetie, lemme break it down:”I think there are things in this world that just shouldn’t be messed with… like the purity of our existence …… ” Many folks said the same thing against the explorers and same sex marriage. guess what – The world is round.’There as a “plastic soup bowl” the size of Texas just off the Hawaiian coast. There is more plastic than plankton… Or, better yet, use your experience to figure out how we can use the sun to make it easier for trees to live…’ Surely even you would appreciate the idea of using plastic to make trees. Which is what this is about. Read before flag waving.
THEY ARENT FAKE TREES, BUMP Superjay48.RE-READ the article, holy cow. The scientist is replicating the process not the plant. THE PROCESS! of photosynthesis to produce energy.
Superjay48 and tTesla are right that they are trying to mimic photosynthesis not make fake plants. The only thing superjay48 has wrong is the fact that they are ‘replicating’ photosynthesis. What Daniel Nocera is doing is splitting water to form hydrogen and oxygen. Humans use the hydrogen in fuel cells to power cars, buildings, etc. Plants use this energy instead to make carbohydrates by capturing carbon dioxide. While this is a great source for clean renewable energy (i.e. less burning of fossil fuels), this does not capture carbon we already put in the atmosphere.
WADR, greywolf, you are off-the-mark vis-á-vis photosynthesis. In simplest form, plants combine six carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules and six water (H2O) molecules with a generous helping of solar energy to create one molecule of simple sugar (C6H12O6) and two molecules of oxygen (O2). The plant uses the sugar and passes the oxygen on to us as per it’s design. Maybe you’re thinking about photosynthetic bacteria. They live in lakes and pools, and use the hydrogen from hydrogen sulfide (H2S) instead of from water, for their photosynthetic process.I think jesslc_02 has the right idea: stop whacking down all the forests until AFTER we’ve figured out how to improve upon the original design. I, for one, would like to see some of this excess energy (hewing wood) devoted to thinking about how we can travel to the stars (and we’ll have something nice to leave behind as well).
Wow! Just think! They can put fake trees on Mars and create an atmosphere! Maybe even on the moon? Now they just have to figure out how to create water. So many things this can be used for. How about adding one to a sick room, where a person would require more oxygen. I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating new things to help man/animal/planet, as long as it not used as an excuse to destroy the nature that already exsists. Remember, there is a balance for a reason.
@ greywolf.The whole reason people are screaming for more trees and plants is largely because the more plants we have (the things that ABSORB CO2 and give off the waste product known as O2), the less CO2 remains in the atmosphere and the oceans. The blue-green algae in the oceans are the largest CO2 sink we have right now. If we could assist the process of converting CO2 into harmless Carbon, Oxygen, and Water on a large enough scale, then we would no longer be faced with the threat of all the blue-green algae dying off from increased acidity levels in the ocean (the more CO2 in the water, the lower the pH gets). From there they would instead continue to absorb CO2(instead of dying off and worsening/snowballing the problem), and thus. the process would slowly fix itself, etc. If Nocera can actually manage to get this done large scale, it would not only solve the problem that concerns politics (Energy), but it would solve the problem that concerns environmentalists (Global Climate Change) as well.
She is trying to create a more efficent solar cell for cheap clean energy, that’s it. It has nothing to do with plastic trees. She is trying to create artificial photosynthesis for energy for human consumption.
wow! this is so scifi! i just hope that when the technology becomes available, it won’t just be available to a privileged few.
does anyone else find it disturbing that in one of the very first posts they completely missed the whole point of the story? We all know about the giant plastic mass floating in the ocean as i recall some groups are tracking it and trying to come up with something to do about it…do you even understand why less plankton in the ocean is a bad thing? And when has “leaf burn” ever been used as a scientific term? There is no evidence that the earth will keep getting hotter and hotter till it burns itself down to a smoldering mass of rock. Infact no one has ever even made that comment in a scientific way. What global warming refers to is the slow rise of the earths average yearly temps, when this number raises high enough say 5 to 10 degrees…. the natural balances will be thrown off causing more of the ice caps to melt down flooding the ocean with fresh water, raising the oceans level and slowing down or stopping the natural oceanic cycle which has a huge impact on global weather, sending us into an ICE AGE not nuclear melt down.I’m all for global thinking and envirominded individuals with passion but please check your facts and make sure your yelling the right battle cry.
Sorry but the notion of getting a free lunch is still laughable.To divide the hydrogen and oxygen takes more energy than the release of energy when they recombine.Without plants (as we know them) all Oxygen will be traped within calcium carbonate. Sorry MIT but it is a wise man who knows Better is the enemy of Good.
people,mother nature created us and it was a long,precise harmonized process. dont even think about it to get near her.but,even if your challenge once ends with sucsess,you will going to another silly projektand so an and an,its inside our human nature,wich causes untill nowlots of harm to ourself and to all the world we are living in.better try to make up on your self,being a better person day by day..i think it’s the perfect qwest for all of us and a real and only solutionto making our world better.i wote to us
This is defenitely an excellent inovation, so long as it is used for alternative forms of clean power. It sounds like the upgrade to Solar Pannels which is awesome. I just hope people don’t start thinking these things should replace real trees, b.c the costs and benefits real trees have are FAR greater then that of the fake ones. If your going into costs a plastic tree would never be able to compete with that of a real tree. They might be able to maximize more energy from sunlight, and may even be able to generate more oxygen and absorb carbon. But a plastic tree compared to a real tree is like comparing a paper airplane to an F-22 raptor. For one is the usage of this rare metals good for the environment. That is are these rare metals also heavy metals going to pollute the soil, water, and air quality. Additionally how durable are these fake trees. Will the be able to survive natural disasters? Flooding, fires, seismic activity, winds, etc. as many trees on earth can do. Can they stop soil erosion? And where would they store the carbon? Trees store them in roots, the trunk, and the fruit but where would these go? The cost of transportation is also cheaper. A seed is relatively small. If I wanted to transport a Redwood to a new area i can hop in airplane without breaking weight restrictions and easily transfer it from point A to point B. Do these devices have compacted easy to transport modes? Can they even absorb Carbon Dioxide? How much water do they absorb and how much do they give back to the environment? I think this technology isn’t going to be used to replace trees but be used as a power source for homes, businesses, buildings, cars, and electronics. I doubt that they would be useful in teraforming a planet, but it defenitely could be used to power Moon Bases and Space Stations. To teraform a plane 1st water would have to be available on the planet, 2nd. The device dosn’t create new oxygen it just makes energy from using the sunlight to split H20 then recombines it. Energy is relased during this proces and its stored in a powercell. Your best bet at teraforming a planet would be using an extremophile bacteria that would be able to solely survive on the rock material and sunlight. Even then its byproducts would have to be oxygen, and not anything toxic to itself and us.
4 Billion years ago – Atmosphere consisted of Water Vapor, Carbon Dioxide, and nitrogen.3.5 Billion years ago – Bacteria and Alge begin to exist.Oxygen produced by trans-evaporation and primative photosynthesis.illion years ago – Oxygen Breathers begin to exist.1900 Mankind went from a solar economy (farming), to an economy of energy requiring fuel.2010 – Mankind as smart as Bacteria and Alge.
Fake Plastic Trees by RadioheadA green plastic watering canFor a fake Chinese rubber plantIn a fake plastic earth.That she bought from a rubber manIn a town full of rubber plansTo get rid of herself.It wears her out, it wears her outIt wears her out, it wears her outShe lives with a broken manA cracked polystyrene manWho just crumbles and burns.He used to do surgeryFor girls in the EightiesBut gravity always wins.And it wears him out, it wears him outIt wears him out, it wears him out.She looks like the real thingShe tastes like the real thingMy fake plastic love.But I can’t help the feelingI could blow through the ceilingIf I just turn and run.And it wears me out, it wears me outIt wears me out, it wears me out. If I could be who you wantedIf I could be who you wantedAll the time, all the time.
It is no accident that we can gain a wealth of solutions patterned from the intelligent designs found within nature itself without creating more problems through random environmental mutation.Evolution Facts
Heads up to the author of the article for being a radiohead fan. Fueling the photosynthesis process at a broad scale would be very beneficial, perhaps nanotechnology could be used for altering the chemical properties of some common materials? Maybe not the cheapest route, but I would imagine if the right objects were used they could do it…just look at what they did with the diamond.