'Artificial leaf' that may help generate clean power on the anvil.Byline: ANI London, Aug 12 (ANI): Researchers at Imperial College London History Imperial College was founded in 1907, with the merger of the City and Guilds College, the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science (all of which had been founded between 1845 and 1878) with these entities continuing to exist as "constituent colleges". are trying to imitate the process of photosynthesis by making an 'artificial leaf' to produce clean power. Photosynthesis, the process where plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. into sugar, is the most effective solar energy solar energy, any form of energy radiated by the sun, including light, radio waves, and X rays, although the term usually refers to the visible light of the sun. conversion process on Earth. And researchers believe that mimicking parts of it could be the ticket to a limitless supply of clean power. The untapped potential for using the sun's rays is huge. All human activity for a whole year could be powered by the energy contained in the sunlight hitting the Earth in just one hour. At Imperial College London, researchers have embarked on a 1-million-pound project to study, and eventually mimic, photosynthesis. Part of a project called the "artificial leaf", involves working out exactly how leaves use sunlight to make useful molecules. The team then plans to build artificial systems that can do the same to generate clean fuels such as hydrogen and methanol. These would then be used in fuel cells to make electricity or directly to power super-clean vehicles without putting the climate in danger. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. James Barber James Barber is the Canadian cooking show host of the Urban Peasant. Born in the United Kingdom, he formerly worked as an engineer before becoming a cookbook author and restaurant critic for the Vancouver Sun. He currently resides in British Columbia. , a biologist at Imperial College London and leader of the artificial leaf project The LEAF Project (Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall) is a collection of Linux distributions that began as a fork from the The Linux Router Project (LRP) "linux-on-a-floppy" distribution. , if artificial photosynthesis systems could use around 10 percent of the sunlight falling on them, they would only need to cover 0.16 percent of the Earth's surface to satisfy a global energy needs. "If the leaf can do it, we can do it but even better," the Telegraph quoted Barber as telling the Guardian. "It doesn't mean that you try to build exactly what the leaf has. Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (də vĭn`chē, Ital. lāōnär`dō dä vēn`chē), 1452–1519, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist, b. near Vinci, a hill village in Tuscany. tried to design flying machines with feathers that flapped up and down. But in the end we built 747s and Airbus 380s, completely different to a bird and, in fact, even better than a bird. "The challenge is to get hydrogen out of water using a ready supply of energy," Barber added. Scientists can already produce hydrogen by splitting water but current techniques are expensive, use harsh chemicals and need carefully controlled environments in which to operate. The critical part of the artificial leaf project is developing catalysts made from cheap materials that can be used to split water in everyday conditions. (ANI) Copyright 2009 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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