Solar Fuels Production by Artificial Photosynthesis

Solar energy is one of the few renewable sources of sufficient scale to meet our future energy demands. Solar energy can be converted into several different useful forms: heat, electricity, and fuels. Of particular interest is the development of solar fuels, which are concentrated energy carriers with long-term storage capacity produced by energy input from solar irradiation. These fuels would play an important role in balancing out the daily and yearly local variations in solar irradiation. Solar fuels can therefore be expected to become an important contributor to our future energy systems.

Solar fuels can be produced in direct processes, with theoretical conversion solar-to-fuel energy conversion efficiencies up to 40% for a tandem system. They use principles similar to the primary reactions of photosynthesis, but without biomass production and life processes that lead to the low overall efficiency of photosynthesis. The talk will present research and results on synthetic, man-made systems for direct solar fuels production based on these principles.