Scientists have confirmed that Climate change eventualities have adversely increased their occurrence in the last two -to three years affecting millions of people worldwide from floods occurring, to droughts and cyclones, earthquakes. These crises have led to a global call to phase out fossil fuel use and adopt renewables since fossils lead to carbon emissions that increase global warming, threatening to pass the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold.
One of the key renewable energy harvesting strategies that achieve carbon-neutral cycles is artificial photosynthesis. The artificial Photosynthesis design not only demonstrates the conversion of swimming green algae into photovoltaic power stations but also works as a cheaper option to costly Solar-to-fuel routes relying on elaborately crafted semiconductors.
Scientists have announced groundbreaking research where they produced hydrogen from nothing but green algae and sunlight. Publishing the research in Nature, the researchers were able to penetrate the algae’s cells with carbon nanofibers, transforming the lifeform’s cells into hydrogen generation devices. They then used this hydrogen to power an RC car made by Horizon Educational, the H-Racer 2.0.
According to Kamil Jelinek, CEO of Horizon Educational, the fact that scientists were able to power our RC car with green algae has stunned everyone in our office. “Usually, our products are used to introduce students to how hydrogen is produced, stored, and used in a hands-on and interactive way. This new and exciting application has motivated us to create learning material that breaks down this ground-breaking research for our students,” said Mr. Kamil.
The cutting-edge study by scientists achieved hydrogen production by engineering the green algae species Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, penetrating the algae’s cells and injecting them with carbon nanofibers. These carbon nanofibers (150 times smaller than a grain of sand) transformed the algae’s cells into power generation systems, capable of generating enough hydrogen to run the fuel cell electric car.
Current ways of generating fuel from solar power rely on expensive semiconductors, making the systems too expensive to be used at scale. The research team, led by Professor Hyo Jin Gwon, was able to demonstrate that the green algae could generate hydrogen on its own for over 50 days, and the production system had meager costs being scalable and efficient in terms of space.
This method of producing hydrogen fuel is not only “green”, generating no CO2 emissions, but it can grow in capacity at a steady rate when the number of algae is increased. This means that while the system used by the scientists could power the H-Racer 2.0, on a larger scale it has the potential to power industrial-scale solar to hydrogen generation systems, transforming how the global supply of hydrogen is produced.
