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Could a Photosynthesis 'Hack' Lead to New Ways of Generating Renewable Energy? -...

 1 year ago
source link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/04/02/205207/could-a-photosynthesis-hack-lead-to-new-ways-of-generating-renewable-energy
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Could a Photosynthesis 'Hack' Lead to New Ways of Generating Renewable Energy?

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"Researchers have 'hacked' the earliest stages of photosynthesis," according to a new announcement from the University of Cambridge.

CNET reports:

Scientists have studied photosynthesis in plants for centuries, but an international team believes they've unlocked new secrets in nature's great machine that could revolutionize sustainable fuels and fight climate change. The team says they've determined it's possible to extract an electrical charge at the best possible point in photosynthesis. This means harvesting the maximum amount of electrons from the process for potential use in power grids and some types of batteries. It could also improve the development of biofuels. While it's still early days, the findings, reported in the journal Nature, could reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and provide insights to improve photovoltaic solar panels.

The key breakthrough came when researchers observed the process of photosynthesis at ultrafast timescales. "We can take photos at different times which allow us to watch changes in the sample really, really quickly — a million billion times faster than your iPhone," Dr. Tomi Baikie, from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, told CNET....

Previous demonstrations connected cyanobacteria, algae and other plants to electrodes to create so-called bio-photoelectrochemical cells that tap into the photosynthetic process to generate electricity. Baikie said they were surprised to discover a previously unknown pathway of energy flow at the beginning of the process that could enable extracting the charge in a more efficient way.

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    • Re:

      That's right, if the title of the article asks a question the answer is almost certainly, "No."

      • Re:

        Photosynthesis is usually limited by the availability of water and/or CO2. If we harvest the energized electrons directly, rather than letting them flow into the generation of ATP and glucose, we can bypass those bottlenecks.

  • How does photosynthesis compare with PV, or solar thermal in terms of efficiency? Sure, it's nice to understand how nature does it. But a man-made (i.e. photovoltaic) process might be easier to optimize.

    We didn't copy birds to produce human flight. Which is a good thing when the cabin crew starts handing out the meals.

    • Re:

      For starters, I'm guessing they all work better during the day.:-)

    • Re:

      I'm a little surprised the article doesn't have more to say about potential applications to agriculture (It only mentions making crops more tolerant of excess sunshine). I wonder if it's because GMO is such a hotbutton issue in the UK where the research was conducted.

    • Re:

      I was thinking the same thing too - photosythesis has pretty low efficiency compared to panels (say 4% vs 20%), but this is still cool.

      For example, if you could grow this stuff, and just access the electrons somehow, it might be much cheaper than making panels and the benefit flows from missing out on constructing the panel, and the plant material might be a modest carbon sink too - so before we poo poo it, let's give a chance.

    • Re:

      Photosynthesis is less efficient but cheaper.

      PV is more effective per area and doesn't need water and fertilizer.

      Solar thermal is fading away as PV improves.

      Actually, we did. Early airplanes, including the Wright Flyer, flexed their wings like birds. Rigid wings, ailerons, and elevators came later.

      • The Wright Flyer had partially flexible wings, but it was a fixed-wing aircraft whose principle of lift wasn't based upon those wings flapping. The flexibility was for stabilization/control, and was based upon Wilbur's observations of birds.

        Nonetheless, I think the OP's point stands, we didn't figure out how to fly by making flapping wings.

    • Re:

      If you can have a bunch of plants or trees to produce even minimal electricity, it will be one more plus point to potentially have people letting there be alot more greenery around.

      Which in turn can help with oxygen production / removal of O2. Climate change, in terms.

    • Re:

      If you mean: how many kW of power hammering on a square meter can be utilized in a PV module versus a new photosynthesis module - the efficiency is poor.

      If you talk about a single photon moving an hydrogen atom - it is high.

      I guess your question is the wrong question: how much does a square meter cost and how much power does it produce, makes more sense?

  • iPhones are notoriously slow and buggy. So a million times faster isn't that impressive when the iPhone is such a slow device when it runs.
  • If it ever goes anywhere. It does seem less toxic than many PV related processes.
  • Can someone help me put this in perspective? How many blinks of an eye are there in one iPhone?

    • Re:

      It is right in the summary... "a million billion", in units real scientists use.

  • > a million billion times faster than your iPhone," Dr. Tomi Baikie, from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory

    Poor guy sitting in a lab thinking an iPhone is some international standard time unit.

    Frequency of light at the upper visible spectrub is 750 trillion Hz, ro 7.5x10^14 Hz.
    iPhone A16 Bionic CPU speed (IF that is what we're comparing to in this stupid quote) - 3.46GHz or roughly 3.5x10^9

    "A million billion times faster" would be 1x10^6 x 1x10^9 faster or 1x10^15 faster.

    That one "milli

    • Re:

      Without reading the article, I'm guessing they are saying that their pump-probe spectroscopy can resolve spectra with a timing resolution 10^15 times better than the camera in an iPhone. Since the iPhone is either a few frames/sec or 60 frames (in video), their timing resolution is under a femtosecond.

    • Re:

      That was a lot of work to tell us you didn't understand he's talking about frames per second.

      • Re:

        That was one big post that contributed nothing more than "Stupid" would have.

        Brevity is the soul of wit. Try to have some... of either.

        • Re:

          Stung, hey?

          You know, if you didn't start out with "lol, what an idiot this 'scientist' dummy is," maybe you wouldn't get so worked up.

  • "Flower Power"

    Maybe the hippies were right all along;)

  • Simply because its a clikc bait title
  • The energy efficiency of the photosynthesis process is abysmal, around 2.5%. The only thing going for it is, it is biological, so it could be cheap to create/grow photosynthesis capable cells in humongous scale. Like marine algae and harvest them

    Nature has been fine tuning the photosynthesis for 3 billion years and it has not improved it beyond 2.5%. So it is unlikely to get any better.

    Airplanes fly faster / higher than any nature designed flying body/machine.

    Photovoltaics are a lot more efficient than photosynthesis.

    • Re:

      Will birds and plants make it through human self-extinction?

    • Re:

      The efficiency of photosynthesis for producing complex organic molecules from sunlight and atmospheric CO2 is pretty impressive.

      This field is about understanding the fundamental details of photosynthesis, and engineering it to do desireable chemistry. It could very well be more efficient than non-biological processes, but even if it's not, a mostly self-maintaining and self-replicating system that, say, takes in light, air and water and spits out kerosene might be pretty useful.

      • Re:

        Often self maintaining and self replicating requires the production of complex organic molecules.

        The 2.5 % efficiency is based on the amount of sunlight the plants soak up and the final "energy", the heat value of the biomass produced by the plants. If you tap in and milk photons or electrons from the bio chemistry, you might not have a self replicating, self maintaining biological system.

    • Re:

      The energy efficiency of the photosynthesis process is abysmal, around 2.5%.
      That is wrong. The energy efficiency is nearly 100%.
      However only 2.5% of the photons hitting the plant are used/useable for photosynthesis.
      The hydrogen transport during photosynthesis is done by a single photon. Can not be more efficient.


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