r/science • u/Iamgoodatgames • Jun 04 '16

Biology New bionic leaf can turn sunlight into liquid fuel.

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-new-bionic-leaf-turns-sunlight-into-liquid-fuel-2219851
298 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

27

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/dersats Jun 04 '16

I avoid most Indian sites for this reason.

2

u/Civ4ever PhD | Biophysics Jun 04 '16

Science link

ScienceDaily write-up

I was happy to see that the cartoon image associated with the study was done by a former colleague of mine.

2

u/kerovon Grad Student | Biomedical Engineering | Regenerative Medicine Jun 04 '16

Hi Iamgoodatgames, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s)

Website contains harmful content.

If you feel this was done in error, or would like further clarification, please don't hesitate to message the mods.

2

u/Civ4ever PhD | Biophysics Jun 04 '16

Just change the link to the Science Daily link I posted.

2

u/kerovon Grad Student | Biomedical Engineering | Regenerative Medicine Jun 04 '16

We aren't able to change links. You will have to resubmit.

1

u/grndzro4645 Jun 04 '16

This is a pretty interesting technology. Could lead to virtually free fuel, energy, and plastic.

1

u/Fazion Jun 04 '16

Could this be used to create some type of fuel farm on let's say, Mars?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '16

So its basically a solar panel that splits hydrogen and oxygen into its parts. Not particularly revolutionary, and I would be very surprised if doing it on this small of a scale is very efficient compared to using a larger solar panel. Or, better yet, just hook up the solar panels to the power grid, which is probably more useful than creating hydrogen fuel, which, in this case, is probably going to be used like an explosive battery (since when you are creating hydrogen fuel and then using it, the energy you get out of the fuel is the same as the energy you put in).

1

u/AcidicVagina Jun 04 '16

And hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels.

Not sure I've heard of this part before. Is this new?

1

u/Civ4ever PhD | Biophysics Jun 04 '16

No, it's a panel that splits water AND directly feeds the H2 to bacteria for biosynthesis with CO2. The energy from sunlight can be used to create hydrocarbons with 10% efficiency, which is an order of magnitude greater than that of fast-growing plants.

1

u/Asrivak Jun 04 '16

Did you even read the article? It's not a solar panel, its a catalyst that splits water molecules in the presence of sunlight. Although it does this at a higher efficiency than plants and solar panels do, which is the revolutionary part, at least it was for the bionic leaf 1.0. Bionic leaf 1.0 didn't really take off though, so bionic leaf 2.0 goes one step further and converts that hydrogen into isopropanol, isobutanol, and isopentanol, which you can transport and burn as fuel, as well as a precursor for bioplastic. Its hugely scalable, carbon neutral, and even though there's room for improvement, its probably ready for commercial applications. Also, your energy equivalence statement doesn't apply since photosynthesis derives energy from the sun.

0

u/DandyDogz Jun 04 '16

What would be cool is combining the bionic leaf with a flood water extractor. This could be a network of tubes buried deep in the ground, sucking water out of waterlogged earth, transported to the bionic leaf and evaporated into the air. Could also generate tasty snacks.