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UCF Professor Invents Way to Trigger Artificial Photosynthesis to Clean Air, Produce Energy
https://today.ucf.edu/ucf-invents-way-trigger-artificial-photosynthesis-clear-air-produce-energy-time/[font face=Serif][font size=5]UCF Professor Invents Way to Trigger Artificial Photosynthesis to Clean Air, Produce Energy[/font]
[font size=3]…
It’s something scientists around the world have been pursuing for years, but the challenge is finding a way for visible light to trigger the chemical transformation. Ultraviolet rays have enough energy to allow the reaction in common materials such as titanium dioxide, but UVs make up only about 4 percent of the light Earth receives from the sun. The visible range – the violet to red wavelengths – represent the majority of the sun’s rays, but there are few materials that pick up these light colors to create the chemical reaction that transforms CO₂ into fuel.
…
Uribe-Romo used titanium, a common nontoxic metal, and added organic molecules that act as light-harvesting antennae to see if that configuration would work. The light harvesting antenna molecules, called N-alkyl-2-aminoterephthalates, can be designed to absorb specific colors of light when incorporated in the MOF. In this case he synchronized it for the color blue.
His team assembled a blue LED photoreactor to test out the hypothesis. Measured amounts of carbon dioxide were slowly fed into the photoreactor — a glowing blue cylinder that looks like a tanning bed — to see if the reaction would occur. The glowing blue light came from strips of LED lights inside the chamber of the cylinder and mimic the sun’s blue wavelength.
It worked and the chemical reaction transformed the CO₂ into two reduced forms of carbon, formate and formamides (two kinds of solar fuel) and in the process cleaning the air.
…
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https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TA00437K[font size=3]…
It’s something scientists around the world have been pursuing for years, but the challenge is finding a way for visible light to trigger the chemical transformation. Ultraviolet rays have enough energy to allow the reaction in common materials such as titanium dioxide, but UVs make up only about 4 percent of the light Earth receives from the sun. The visible range – the violet to red wavelengths – represent the majority of the sun’s rays, but there are few materials that pick up these light colors to create the chemical reaction that transforms CO₂ into fuel.
…
Uribe-Romo used titanium, a common nontoxic metal, and added organic molecules that act as light-harvesting antennae to see if that configuration would work. The light harvesting antenna molecules, called N-alkyl-2-aminoterephthalates, can be designed to absorb specific colors of light when incorporated in the MOF. In this case he synchronized it for the color blue.
His team assembled a blue LED photoreactor to test out the hypothesis. Measured amounts of carbon dioxide were slowly fed into the photoreactor — a glowing blue cylinder that looks like a tanning bed — to see if the reaction would occur. The glowing blue light came from strips of LED lights inside the chamber of the cylinder and mimic the sun’s blue wavelength.
It worked and the chemical reaction transformed the CO₂ into two reduced forms of carbon, formate and formamides (two kinds of solar fuel) and in the process cleaning the air.
…
…[/font][/font]
