The process of photosynthesis allows plants to make their own food. This is extremely important, especially in nature. However, photosynthesis in itself isn’t as effective. It takes time and a lot of steps. That’s why scientists have been searching for ways to enhance it.
With time, resources, and a lot of work, there just be a solution to this. Artificial photosynthesis may just be what the plants need to thrive in this ever-changing environment. But what is this exactly and how does it all work?
Photosynthesis has definitely evolved in the years. Plants have been using this to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from the sun into plant biomass. They also do this to produce the food we eat. Unfortunately, the entire isn’t as efficient. In fact, only about 1 percent of the energy found in sunlight ends up in its leaves.
Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have been searching for ways to photosynthesize properly and efficiently. They have discovered how to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis in general and instead, allow plants to create food without the need for sunlight in a process they called artificial photosynthesis.
What they did was grow these plants in an electrolyzed medium containing acetate. This replaces the natural photosynthesis process. The research they conducted makes use of a two-step electrocatalytic process that has the ability to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water and turn these into acetate, the form of the main component of vinegar. Food-producing organisms then use the acetate as food so that they are able to grow in the dark.
When the process is merged with solar panels so that it is able to generate the electricity to power the electrocatalysis, this hybrid organic-inorganic system is able to increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight and turn to food and it has shown to be 18 times more efficient for some plants.
“With our approach we sought to identify a new way of producing food that could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis,” said corresponding author Robert Jinkerson, an assistant professor of UC Riverside, in the chemical and environmental engineering department.
To merge and put together all the components of the system together, the output of the electrolyzer was optimized. This was done so it can provide support for the growth of food-producing organisms. Electrolyzers are devices used. These utilize electricity so that they are able to convert raw materials such as carbon dioxide and turn this into useful molecules and products. The amount of acetate produced went up while the amount of salt used went down. This brought about the highest levels of acetate ever produced in an electrolyzer. No another gadget or technology has achieved the same amount.
“Using a state-of-the-art two-step tandem CO2 electrolysis setup developed in our laboratory, we were able to achieve a high selectivity towards acetate that cannot be accessed through conventional CO2 electrolysis routes,” explained Feng Jiao from the University of Delaware. He’s also a corresponding author.
Experiments showed the researchers that there is a sizeable variety of food-producing organisms can be grown in the dark if placed directly on the acetate-rich electrolyzer output. Among the list would be green algae, yeast, and fungal mycelium that produce mushrooms. When making algae with this kind of technology, it is approximately fourfold more energy efficient. In fact, it is more effective than growing it photosynthetically. Yeast production, on the other hand, is about 18-fold more energy efficient than when it is typically cultivated when using sugar extracted from corn.
“We were able to grow food-producing organisms without any contributions from biological photosynthesis. Typically, these organisms are cultivated on sugars derived from plants or inputs derived from petroleum—which is a product of biological photosynthesis that took place millions of years ago. This technology is a more efficient method of turning solar energy into food, as compared to food production that relies on biological photosynthesis,” said Elizabeth Hann. She is a doctoral candidate in the Jinkerson Lab and co-lead author of the study.
The researchers are also looking into its potential for growing crop plants such as cowpea, tomato, tobacco, rice, canola, and green pea. The plants on the list were all able to make use of carbon from acetate when these had been cultivated without light.
“We found that a wide range of crops could take the acetate we provided and build it into the major molecular building blocks an organism needs to grow and thrive. With some breeding and engineering that we are currently working on we might be able to grow crops with acetate as an extra energy source to boost crop yields,” said Marcus Harland-Dunaway. He is a doctoral candidate in the Jinkerson Lab as well as the co-lead author of the study.
The goal is to liberating agriculture. They want plants to gain complete dependence on the sun. With this method, artificial photosynthesis can open doors to a myriad of possibilities that allow food growth under the increasingly difficult conditions that have come about as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Drought, floods, and reduced land availability wouldn’t be such a problem to global food security if the plants consumed by humans and animals grew and thrived in less resource-intensive, controlled environments. Another possibility would be that crops would be planted and cultivated in cities and other areas that are considered unsuitable for agriculture. This even offers the possibility of providing food for space explorers in the future.
“Using artificial photosynthesis approaches to produce food could be a paradigm shift for how we feed people. By increasing the efficiency of food production, less land is needed, lessening the impact agriculture has on the environment. And for agriculture in non-traditional environments, like outer space, the increased energy efficiency could help feed more crew members with less inputs,” Jinkerson said.
This approach to food production was considered and passed to NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge. This won in Phase I. For those who don’t know, the Deep Space Food Challenge is an international competition where prizes are given to those to create new and innovative food provision technologies that don’t require inputs while being able to optimize safe, nutrient-rich, and edible food products that are fit for long-duration missions in outer space.
“Imagine someday giant vessels growing tomato plants in the dark and on Mars—how much easier would that be for future Martians?” said co-author Martha Orozco-Cárdenas. She is the director of the UC Riverside Plant Transformation Research Center.
Details on this research are available and have been published in in Nature Food.
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