CAN ARTIFICIAL PLANTS SAVE THE FUTURE?
- Sultan Al-Turki
- Nov 14, 2019
- 2 min read
By Sultan Al-Turki
Dated: November 14, 2019
The topic of our climate has risen to the forefront of society’s mind in the past year. With more active activists and online fundraisers trying to plant millions of trees, the world has been banding together to solve the climate crisis on our hands. But what does the world of scientific development have to offer? Well maybe the secret isn’t planting more real plants, but rather fake ones.
Scientists at the University of Waterloo have created an ‘artificial leaf’ which acts similarly to a biological leaf. However, instead of taking in carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight to make oxygen and glucose for the plant, it takes those inputs but makes oxygen and methanol, which is a useful alternative fuel.
Yimin Wu, an engineering professor at the university, and his team discovered a chemical reaction that utilized a cheap red powder called cuprous oxide to facilitate the leaves’ function. Professor Wu has a great deal of optimism for the discovery; he stated, “Climate change is an urgent problem and we can help reduce CO2 emissions while also creating an alternative fuel.”
Another useful fuel making artificial plant is the sunflower-like biomimetic omnidirectional tracker - or SunBOT, for short. This man-made flower is embedded with the standard material used in solar panels to make use of the suns light.
However, where it really shines is the use of a light-sensitive material to bend the SunBOT towards the sun, in the same way real sunflowers act. The material used to accomplish this feat is the first in history that is able to replicate the phototropism, or attraction to light that biological sunflowers have. This pseudo-phototropism allows it to absorb 400 percent more energy than if it were stationary.
While this may seem somewhat restricted in its current stage, the possibilities of this technology are abundant. The team working on the SunBOT claim that this technology can be used for smart windows, enhanced solar harvesting both on Earth and on spacecrafts, guided surgery, among many other applications.
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