Chemical approaches to artificial photosynthesis

Technical Report · Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1989

OSTI ID:5449003

Meyer, T J

In artificial photosynthesis, the goal is to mimic the ability of green plants and other photosynthetic organisms in their use of sunlight to make high-energy chemicals. This is a difficult problem chemically, which accounts for much of the complexity of the natural photosynthetic apparatus. Nonetheless, a number of promising approaches appeared in recent years based on semiconductors, membranes, vesicles, and molecular system. The chemical approaches to artificial photosynthesis are based on a series of well-established chemical principles, the development of an extensive supporting synthetic chemistry, and the discovery of new catalytic systems and the principles by which they operate. It is impressive that nearly all of the background chemistry and photochemistry has appeared within the last 10-15 years. It seems inevitable that, with continued progress in this area, devices of the type implied here, or at least having some of their features, will be successfully constructed. Even if they have no economic value, the ability to incorporate the broadly based set of ideas required to deal with making them will be impressive demonstration of the growing high technology capabilities of modern chemistry.

• Research Organization: North Carolina Univ., Chapel Hill, NC (USA). Dept. of Chemistry
• OSTI ID: 5449003
• Report Number(s): AD-A-211332/2/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140505* -- Solar Energy Conversion-- Photochemical
Photobiological
& Thermochemical Conversion-- (1980-)
CATALYSIS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHEMISTRY
CONVERSION
ECONOMICS
ENERGY CONVERSION
MATERIALS
MOLECULAR STRUCTURE
PHOTOCHEMICAL REACTIONS
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
PLANTS
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
SOLAR ENERGY CONVERSION
SYNTHESIS