Synthesizing Chemical Products on Artificial Leaf Using Sunlight

Chemical engineers at Eindhoven University of Technology have submitted a scenario to collect adequate sunlight for producing chemical products such as drugs or crop protection agents.

Making chemical products using sunlight has been a dream of many chemical engineers. The challenge is that available sunlight produces insufficient energy to start reactions. But nature is capable of doing this. Antenna molecules present in leaves can seize energy from sunlight and save it in the reaction centers of the leaf where adequate solar energy is found for the chemical reactions that provide the plant its food. This process is called photosynthesis.

Capturing Adequate Light

The researchers came across comparatively new materials, known as luminescent solar concentrators (LSC’s), which are capable of capturing sunlight in the same manner. Particular light-sensitive molecules in these materials seize a large amount of the incoming light that they then exchange into a specific color that is moved to the edges via light conductivity. These LSC’s are often used in practice in association with solar cells to maximize the yield.

Mircochannels and LSC

The researchers, under the leadership of Dr. Timothy Noël, united the idea of an LSC with their knowledge of microchannels which are very thin channels in a silicon rubber LSC where a liquid can be pumped. In this approach they were capable of bringing the incoming sunlight to get in touch with the molecules in the liquid with high intensity enough to carry out chemical reactions.

While the reaction they selected were considered as an initial example, the results exceeded all their expectations, and not only in the lab. “The chemical production was found to be 40 percent higher than that of a same experiment without using LSC material,” mentioned lead researcher Noël. “We still notice plenty of potential for improvement. We currently have a powerful tool at our disposal that facilitates the sustainable, sunlight-based production of helpful chemical products such as drugs or crop protection agents.”

Artificial leaf as reactor to produce drugs

For the production of drugs there are really a lot of possibilities. The chemical reactions for producing drugs now need toxic chemicals and more energy in the form of fossil fuels. Making use of visible light for the same reactions happen to be sustainable, cheap and, theoretically, numerous times faster. However Noël hopes it need not stop there. “By using a reactor like this it means you can produce drugs anywhere, technically, whether malaria drugs in the jungle or paracetamol on Mars. All you require is sunlight and this mini-factory.”

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Image Credit: Bart van Overbeeke