–Anuska Sen, Amity University Kolkata
Continuous depletion of renewable energy like fuel poses a serious threat to the future world. With the discovery of photocatalytic sheet aka photosheet, an artificial photosynthesis has been made possible which allows the products to be stored as fuel.
The photosheet uses water, carbon-dioxide and sunlight as the raw materials and generates oxygen and formic acid. This formic acid can be conveniently used and stored as fuel for future use. Two of the best advantages of this photosheet are that, firstly it is self-powered and secondly, it does not produce any other useless by-products.
This sheet works on the principle that when sunlight strikes the photosheet placed in water, the water acts as the electron donor and there are different reactions such as oxidation which aid the photo-conversion of carbon-dioxide to formate. The use of cobalt and rubidium based catalysts and special semi-conductors makes the process possible.
Thus, this technology can be expected to be a convincing breakthrough in the production of sustainable energy.
This article has been published in Nature Energy
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