The European Union has developed a new "artificial leaf" to provide sustainable solutions to its ene

In the latest issue of the journal Energy and Environmental Science, the European Union's ALeaf project team highlights its software for an "artificial LEAF" system that converts carbon dioxide and water into A sustainable fuel, mimicating nature's plant photosynthesis and achieving 10 percent solar powera new record for fuel conversion efficiency. It is also the first "artificial leaf" to produce solar poweran order of magnitude higher fuel conversion rate than natural leaves, bringing a sustainable solution to the energy transition.

▽ Image of the newly developed artificial leaf system (photo by the Chemical Institute of Catalonia)

The new ALEAF project aims to develop artificial photosynthetic devices (artificial leaves). Developing and designing "artificial leaves" to directly convert carbon dioxide, water and the sun into meaningful fuels and chemicals is one of the biggest challenges facing the energy transition, the team stressed. The "artificial leaves" developed in the past had to be made of expensive materials and had many problems such as the system software fastness and poor performance.

For the first time, the new facility produces radon gas at the same time as the radon-storing formates, which are used to produce radon gas when the sun is not shining. As a result, the new machine is the first to produce hydrogen continuously using an artificial leaf device. The team certified the system using a compact photocatalytic fluid rechargeable cell and integrated with a cost-reducing silicon-based photovoltaic module.

The team stresses that this research has smoothen the road for future energy scenarios by integrating Artificial Leaf software into a sustainable solution to the challenge of transforming current centralized power sources into distributed system alternatives.

The researchers plan to scale up the system to confirm its feasibility for industrial production. The ultimate goal is to build an "artificial tree."