Syngas from artificial leaf offers sustainable liquid fuels

The artificial leaf from Cambridge University is powered by sunlight and does not release any additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The results are reported in Nature Materials.

Syngas is made from a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide and is used to produce commodities including fuels, pharmaceuticals, plastics and fertilisers.

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"Being able to produce [syngas] sustainably would be a critical step in closing the global carbon cycle and establishing a sustainable chemical and fuel industry," said senior author Professor Erwin Reisner from Cambridge's Department of Chemistry, who has spent seven years working towards this goal.

On the artificial leaf, two light absorbers, similar to the molecules in plants that harvest sunlight, are combined with a catalyst made from cobalt. When the device is immersed in water, one light absorber uses the catalyst to produce oxygen. The other carries out the chemical reaction that reduces carbon dioxide and water into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, forming the syngas mixture. The researchers add that their light absorbers work under the low levels of sunlight or on rainy or overcast days.