Given the current state of our climate, scientists in many countries are researching clean, sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, and recent experiments are pointing to a potential new solution: plants.
Renewable energy sources are already available, such as wind turbines and solar panels. However, these systems have limitations. Although the photovoltaic technology used in solar panels allows us to convert the sun's energy into electricity, it's relatively inefficient. The amount of sunlight that hits the earth in one hour has enough power to meet human civilization's energy needs for a year, but solar panels can capture only about 20 per cent of the sun's energy.
Photosynthesis, on the other hand, can store 60 per cent of the sun's energy. If we could catch, or channel, this electrical current, it could provide us with a clean and efficient source of renewable energy.
Mimicking the process
Remember learning about photosynthesis in science lessons when you were at school? In this biochemical process, plants collect sunlight, water and carbon dioxide and convert them into usable energy. They use the sunlight to break apart the water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then combine the hydrogen with the carbon dioxide to create carbohydrates. All living cells perform this biochemical process, constantly shuttling electrically charged particles around.
In recent years, scientists have found that it's possible to recreate this process, using what's called artificial, or synthetic, photosynthesis.
During a 2021 study funded by the US National Science Foundation, scientists built an artificial leaf to mimic the process of photosynthesis. This fake leaf worked the same way as a real one, collecting light, splitting water molecules and generating hydrogen.
In a 2022 study by Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), published in 2023 by the American Chemistry Society, it was reported that researchers had "for the first time used a succulent plant to create a living ‘bio-solar cell' that runs on photosynthesis."
An inexhaustible source of energy
Hydrogen is an excellent source of fuel. Whether used alone or in conjunction with other fuels such as natural gas, it can be used to power anything from mobile phones and cars, to large buildings and hospitals.
As Jules Verne wrote in his novel The Mysterious Island, published in 1875: "I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable. While using plants to generate electricity might still seem like the stuff of sci-fi, we are closer than you might think.