Berkeley Lab Researchers Perform Solar-Powered Green Chemistry With Captured CO2
BERKELEY, CA - A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into chemical products.
Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that mimics the natural photosynthetic process by which plants use the energy in sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from CO2 and water. However, this new artificial photosynthetic system synthesizes the combination of carbon dioxide and water into acetate, the most common building block today for biosynthesis.