• Question: Do you think it will ever be possible to recreate artificial photosynthesis, therefore taking in Co2 and sunlight and getting out 02 and gluicose?

    Asked by jesusjones to Ben, Heather, Louisa on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Science is constantly borrowing ideas from nature and making synthetic versions of. But I think that trying to recreate artificial photosynthesis, using some chemical setup, would be a step in the wrong direction. Nature has this so perfect that we should just learn how to harness its power.

      We are now developing the ability to create artificial life. So we could create micro-organisms which could photosynthesise – in a way this is artificial photosynthesis as it would not be a natural organism. Craig Venter is the man with the plan here. He is also working on organisms that might be able to turn CO2 into oil; now that would be amazing!

    • Photo: Louisa Chard

      Louisa Chard answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      What a good question. INfact artifical photosythesis is something that a lot of people are working on at the moment, not so much to get glucose, but as a way of creating clean, sustainable energy in the form of hydrogen to use as a fuel and also as a way of making methanol (instead of glucose) that can also be used as a fuel. So far, the big problem has been trying to artifically split water – don’t forget, plants have had billions of years to develop efficient photosythesis, we’ve only been working on it for a small amount of time. In man-made situations, the chemicals used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen are unstable (although we can efficiently capture sunlight using solar panels, so that’s sorted). In reality, it’ll be about 10 years before we have an efficient system developed, but its certainly an area that a lot of research is going into as we deplete our supply of fossil fuels.

    • Photo: Heather McKee

      Heather McKee answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      I think scientists are getting there, at the moment the main problem is energy to spark the process. Photosynthesis requires several electrons in the reaction be energised(multiple electron system) visible light can only contribute a minimal amount of energy towards a chemical rxn. So how do scientists create these multiple electron systems in the lab? Scientsts are currently looking into using carbon nanotubes(each tube could potentially absorb millons of electrons and become a reciever for artifical photosynthesis.
      Why artifical photosynthesis is so sought after is that it potentially could provide a ‘clean” fuel for vehicles-all that would be needed would be simple water. However there is a bit of conreversy over this process as many scientists believe its messing with the natural way of life and that it’s just a quick fix method to our climate change issues.

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