We all breathe the air, well technically breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. And where do we get these from? Obviously, everyone knows the answer to this silly question- from plants through photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is simply the process by which plants make their food, in the process producing by-products like Oxygen and taking in Carbon dioxide. Now, the scientists- a curious species as they are, have tried to replicate this system in labs for years and have finally succeeded in doing so. Since the main ingredient required in the process is light, of which we is abundant here on earth, scientists have found a way to artificially recreate this nature’s wonder, thereby producing fuel. Since the air we breathe out and also a pollutant, Carbon dioxide happens to be another important element in this process, this technique seems capable of doing an incredibly amazing job of doing two good things at once- to clean up the environment as well as produce clean energy.
Scientists from the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Virginia Tech have designed two separate supramolecules which are each made of a number of light-harvesting ruthenium (Ru) metal ions in turn attached to one single catalytic centre
of rhodium (Rh) metal ions. One of these molecules was constructed using six Ru light absorbers and the other with three. The one with six Ru ions could produce approximately 280 hydrogen molecules for every catalyst in a 10-hour period whereas the latter produced 40 hydrogen molecules for 4 hours. This concluded that larger the supramolecule, more electron deficient it is, enabling it to be all the more receptive to electrons needed for synthetic photosynthesis.This work is a milestone in this direction and is a clear landmark to those who wish use synthetic photosynthesis to create clean fuel energy.
