Generate electric current from the natural photosynthesis of a plant

Abstract

Plants are capable of producing their own food through photosynthesis, an extremely complex chemical process that groups of scientists around the world are trying to replicate in their laboratories. It is what is known as "artificial photosynthesis" and, although it is still in the research phase, it will be useful to generate less polluting energy. Solar energy intervenes in photosynthesis -which the plant converts into chemical energy and, later, into nutrients-, CO2 or chlorophyll, but what interest’s scientists above all is water and the two elements that form it, hydrogen and oxygen. And it is that, one of the objectives of artificial photosynthesis is to imitate the process by which this liquid is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen molecules, as occurs in natural photosynthesis: the hydrogen formed could be used in the future as fuel in motor vehicles to replace oil.Plants carry out their photosynthesis in two stages, a so-called bright one that depends on sunlight, and another called dark, in which reactions that do not need sunlight take place.