New dual-atom catalyst shows promise to yield clean energy by artificial photosynthesis

[Eugene]

Source: Boston College via Phys.org

New dual-atom catalyst shows promise to yield clean energy by artificial photosynthesis

March 5, 2018, Boston College

Looking for new solutions to more efficiently harvest and store solar energy, scientists from the U.S. and China have synthesized a new, dual-atom catalyst to serve as a platform for artificial photosynthesis, the team reported today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team developed an iridium catalyst with only two active metal centers. Most significantly, experiments revealed the catalyst to be a well-defined structure, capable of serving as a productive platform for future research on solar fuel synthesis.

"Our research concerns the technology for direct solar energy storage," said Boston College Associate Professor of Chemistry Dunwei Wang, a lead author of the report. "It addresses the critical challenge that solar energy is intermittent. It does so by directly harvesting solar energy and storing the energy in chemical bonds, similar to how photosynthesis is performed but with higher efficiencies and lower cost."

Researchers have spent considerable time on single-atom catalysts (SACs) and rarely explored an "atomically dispersed catalyst" featuring two atoms. In a paper titled "Stable iridium dinuclear heterogeneous catalysts supported on metal-oxide substrate for solar water oxidation," the team reports synthesizing an iridium dinuclear heterogeneous catalyst in a facile photochemical way. The catalyst shows outstanding stability and high activity toward water oxidation, an essential process in natural and artificial photosynthesis.

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Read more: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-dual-atom-catalyst-yield-energy-artificial.html

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Related: Stable iridium dinuclear heterogeneous catalysts supported on metal-oxide substrate for solar water oxidation (PNAS)

[NNadir]

1. There are generally many hundreds of "artificial photosynthesis" papers published every year.

I only survey a small portion of the available primary scientific literature and I feel as I personally come across at least 3 or 4 a week myself. I don't usually bother reading them.

The search term "artificial photosynthesis" on Google Scholar produces more than 27,000 hits in less than a second.

No system based on iridium, particularly with a low energy to mass ratio as all solar energy systems are required to have, will ever be commercially viable, nor will it ever be sustainable.

Iridium is one of the rarest elements in the periodic table.

As long as we are in denial about the viability of solar energy as a realistic alternative to dangerous fossil fuels, the more we will depend on dangerous fossil fuels.

So called "renewable energy" despite half a century of wild cheering for it hasn't worked, isn't working and won't work to address climate change. It's not even "renewable," and would be far less so if iridium were involved.

The fraction of primary energy produced by dangerous fossil fuels is rising not falling.

It's time to stop getting high and to sober up. The reality of our times is dire.