Biochemical solar power

[too-open-minded]

I'm asking if its possible?

 

Could through genetic engineering and biochemistry, could we develop a bio-synthetic "plant" that would harvest energy from sunlight rather than turning it into an electrical current?

[Iota]

I'm asking if its possible?

 

Could through genetic engineering and biochemistry, could we develop a bio-synthetic "plant" that would harvest energy from sunlight rather than turning it into an electrical current?

 

I'm not aware of any plants that do turn sun light energy into electricity. They all harvest the energy?...

 

Wut mean?

[alpha2cen]

Bio-diesel or bio ethanol is more easy way. These methods are environmental friendly methods to obtain energy. To obtain bio-energy form plants or trees, making lignin digestion enzyme cheaply is important step. If we obtain that enzyme easily, we can easily transfer natural bio-products into ethanol. Among the solar-light power generation, solar heat power generation method is most economical method. Till now solar cell power generation does not have so high economical profit. In the future, deserts, where now useless land, will be important energy generation places.

[Essay]

Bio-diesel or bio ethanol is more easy way. These methods are environmental friendly methods to obtain energy. To obtain bio-energy form plants or trees, making lignin digestion enzyme cheaply is important step. If we obtain that enzyme easily, we can easily transfer natural bio-products into ethanol. Among the solar-light power generation, solar heat power generation method is most economical method. Till now solar cell power generation does not have so high economical profit. In the future, deserts, where now useless land, will be important energy generation places.

 

 

Yes, plants already convert sunlight into energy (not electricity). Bacteria, as well as bacterial ecosystems, have been engineered to (and some naturally) produce an electron or proton gradient (electricity).

 

But plants already have the volume, in biomass, to supply much of the energy we need on a renewable basis each year. The problem is converting the plant energy (carbohydrates/oils/aromatics) into useable fuel. Lignin-digesting enzymes would be one big step toward that conversion. Systems to convert cellulose into ethanol are be another big step.

 

There is, however, another way to use plant energy. Currently we focus on growing specialty crops with a high yield of sugar or oil, so that with minimal effort we can convert the refined crop into useable fuel/electricity. Only the energy-rich, refined fraction of the original crop is used to then conveniently and "economically" produce the fuel/electricity. This is a waste of land, energy-rich fertilizers, and agricultural power.

 

Rather than work hard to grow special biofuel crops (or electricity-producing crops), we could easily convert any/all waste biomass into a crude biotar type of product. We already have the technology to refine crude oils and tars into high-grade fuels. Pyrolytic conversion of biomass into biotar can be an exothermic process (so extra energy can be captured), or it can be run more endothermically (via solar or other heating) to increase the yield of biotar.

 

Either way, there is enough waste biomass out there to easily produce gigatonnes of biosubstrate for further refining. Our current limited refining capacity is the huge, limiting step in this scenario; but the technology has already been "refined," so it's just a matter of using it extensively.

 

Chemical engineering of waste biomass seems to be much easier, safer, and more economical and natural than the genetic/agricultural engineering required to intensively grow pre-refined fuels--that still need further processing, storage, and transport. This also prevents the competition for good soil between food crops and fuel crops; food crops already generate the waste biomass needed for pyrolytic conversion, so no specialty fuel crops are needed.

===

 

Pyrolysis technology isn't so esoteric that it can't be used widely in backyards across the globe, helping rural and agricultural communities in third-world regions as well as providing opportunities on an industrial scale for careers and new industries in more developed and overdeveloped regions.

 

Deserts (combined with wastes and waste water) can also be used to extensively grow cheap biomass, which then helps combat desertification... or furthers de-desertification efforts.

 

As an added benefit, using all that waste biomass would shunt gigatonnes of carbon dioxide out of the natural decay cycle. Some of that could then be used to offset our current carbon emissions, or used to draw down atmospheric carbon levels as we are able to cut future carbon emissions.

 

~

[too-open-minded]

I like the ideas of ethanol based fuels but that's not what I mean.

 

I imagine a solar panel that uses synthetic chlorophyll to collect photons. Then uses diffusion and heat on a elevated part of the panel to carry the photons down the panel to a chamber with synthetic adenosine diphosphate. Converting the photons into oxygen and chemical energy.

 

We still don't fully understand how plants make energy but once we do I think my hypothesis might actually be possible.

[Essay]

I like the ideas of ethanol based fuels but that's not what I mean.

I thought you probably meant getting electricity out of a chlorophyll-type of system, and when you see the process on paper it looks easy enough to replicate and modify for our purposes; but I'm sure it's been tried.

 

 

I think most of the mysteries in photosynthesis have been uncovered. Evolution has figured out a good way of converting sunlight (radiant energy) into biochemical energy... and it is self-repairing and self-renewable.

 

I'm sure there is a way to construct some organometallic polymeric nanomaterial that would convert sunlight into electricity (which is essentially what solar cells already are), but ATP would probably only work in a self-maintaining biological system. Just generating electricity is easy with photoelectric materials I think, but the hard part is maintaining a system that collects and uses the electricity in an economic manner.

 

Even if we could figure something out, I think it would be too complicated and expensive to build, perfect, perpetuate, integrate, and maintain. All of that stuff has already been done by nature. We don't need to copy it, and then adapt the copy to our needs; but simply use what is already in front of us, converted differently.

 

Biomass will naturally (given proper conditions) turn into fossil fuels. With chemical engineering we can speed up that process. The leaf is your "biochemical solar power" already, and it would be easier to convert that biochemical solar power into electricity than it would be to "re-invent the wheel" with some different, uniquely patentable, biochemical solar power, it seems to me.

 

~

[alpha2cen]

I like the ideas of ethanol based fuels but that's not what I mean.

 

Bio-organic material is not stable. It can easily degrade by high energy light. Living organisms have mechanisms to repair the cells against these light exposures.

Nature is more cleaver than our thought.

Edited August 13, 2012 by alpha2cen

[too-open-minded]

I guess your right it probably would cost more resources to build and manufacture than it harvested. Just I really think our next step is chemical energy. Nuclear reactors still are just a turbine powered by the 2nd law of thermodynamics, kinetic energy. Think about all the other energy going on their besides the kinetic energy of a turbine? I'm willing to bet that chemical energy could be used more efficiently than the turbines kinetic energy.

[Essay]

I guess your right it probably would cost more resources to build and manufacture than it harvested. Just I really think our next step is chemical energy. Nuclear reactors still are just a turbine powered by the 2nd law of thermodynamics, kinetic energy. Think about all the other energy going on their besides the kinetic energy of a turbine? I'm willing to bet that chemical energy could be used more efficiently than the turbines kinetic energy.

 

Fuel cells are a chemical way of making electricity.

http://en.wikipedia....fuel_cell_types

 

The max seems to be around 60%, which is also about what a high-tech turbine achieves. People are always working to get another fraction of a percent, and making good money to do so. I think the limitations are not centered on the actual chemistry, but rather on the practicalities surrounding economics, toxicities, and other resource management considerations. But the overall idea is worth pursuing, as evidenced by searching "synthetic leaf" online.

 

Artificial Photosynthesis

Part of the photosynthesis process operates essentially as a fuel cell, creating a proton gradient.

 

Oxidative phosphorylation (respiration) similarly creates a proton gradient, but does not directly rely on sunlight, so it wouldn't be a direct form of biochemical solar power.

 

Nanoscale materials, and metastructures composed of nanomaterials, hold a promise for converting photons directly into electricity... I would think.

Search: electricity from metastructures in nanomaterials (About 1,650,000 results)

 

~

Edited August 13, 2012 by Essay

[Enthalpy]

Biomass presently needs a huge area to produce a limited energy, alas.

 

Research seeks still unused organisms to produce more energy from less area or area less useful to Mankind, like the seabed. Some people suggest micro-organisms like unicellular algae would convert light into more energy than the species we chose and optimized for food production like maize.

 

For sure, replicating only the plants' photochemical reaction, not the full plant nor cellula, looks more efficient as a promise. To my very limited knowledge, this hasn't succeeded up to now because our understanding of photosynthesis suffices for a vague explanation, nor for a working engineering.

 

So the general idea exists, but the practical way needs your better ideas. Beware competition is hard.

[CaptainPanic]

The idea already exists.

 

I think it started at MIT, where they made an artificial leaf, that can split water into oxygen and hydrogen using only sunlight, and some fancy coating.

There seem to be some commercial initiatives too, but I guess that the hydrogen/oxygen made is still more expensive than the standard (fossil) way of making it.

 

!

Moderator Note

Let's keep this thread on topic. Post #5 gives a good explanation of the topic.

 

I have some stuff to say about the pyrolysis too, but it is off-topic, so I created a new thread (here) for that.

[Genecks]

I like the ideas of ethanol based fuels but that's not what I mean.

 

I imagine a solar panel that uses synthetic chlorophyll to collect photons. Then uses diffusion and heat on a elevated part of the panel to carry the photons down the panel to a chamber with synthetic adenosine diphosphate. Converting the photons into oxygen and chemical energy.

 

We still don't fully understand how plants make energy but once we do I think my hypothesis might actually be possible.

 

Yeah, there is stuff like that around. MIT has worked on it before. I don't feel like looking it up. I think it had to do with spinach last time I checked.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/spinach-0915.html

 

MIT seems to be one of the schools that keeps playing around with this kind of technology.

Yes, MIT has enough money to build something that may not be so worthwhile to have at the moment.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Genecks

[too-open-minded]

I'm more interested in thi stuff because I think it will gwt us 1 step closer to cold-fusion rather than me being interested in just the solar power itself

[Genecks]

If you're serious about cold fusion, I think it's possible. It gets into the question of how the universe is really designed. If you take the stance that it's infinite and unlimited, then cold fusion should be possible. However, you would need to extract energy from systems that exist beyond the normal reach of man with science that we just don't have. I'm thinking using wormhole technology or stuff like that. So, you're basically moving energy from one location to another. Otherwise, the energy isn't going to be free. Lots of physics and cosmology involved. Bunch of future science. Depends on how you define cold fusion, too.

 

That's off-topic, though, so make a thread (or search and add) for that if you're interested.

Edited August 31, 2012 by Genecks

[too-open-minded]

I don't believe anything is infinite. Anyways harvesting chemical energy would in my eyes be one step closer to cold fusion. When I think of cold fusion I think of nuclear power without reaching the temperature of the surface of the sun. Then again it wouldn't really be nuclear power as it is today, not with turbines atleast.

 

I already started a thread on it but couldn't really talk much because cold fusion defies modern physics and the thread really just pissed people off.