14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators at the University of Manchester have taken a deep interest in harnessing as much sunlight as possible. They are working with colleagues at several universities in the United Kingdom to achieve this objective, which calls for the creation of new devices for harnessing solar energy.
The investigators, based at the University of East Anglia (UEA), the University of York, and the University of Nottingham, are working with nanoscale technology to make this happen soon.
This line of study was prompted by the fact that the Sun has been calculated to drench the Earth daily with the same amount of energy that the world uses in an entire year. As such, tapping into at least a portion of this energy could have a tremendous impact.
One of the most important things about sunlight is that it's completely renewable. But current conversion technologies only have limited efficiency, despite the best international efforts in the field, Science Blog reports.
Experts with the collaboration will present their first results at the annual Summer Science Exhibition, which is organized by the Royal Society, and starts today, July 5. The main goal of this study is to develop advanced methods of producing biofuel from solar energy.
The nanoscale solar device the team is working on is based on quantum dots, which are special semiconducting materials that are capable of absorbing sunlight. University of Manchester Photon Science Institute expert professor Wendy Flavell is leading the investigation.
“Our Sun provides far more energy than we will ever need, but we use it really inefficiently. To make better use of the fantastic resource we have in our Sun, we need to find out how to create solar fuel that can be stored and shipped to where it is needed and used on demand,” she explains.
The new devices can be submerged in water for example, where they produce a strong enough electrical current to split the chemical into its components – oxygen and hydrogen. The process, called electrolysis, has been known for years, but is tremendously difficult to scale up.
“Most hydrogen so far is obtained from fossil fuels, which are of course not going to last forever, so it is important to get energy from renewable sources,” Flavell goes on to say. “This is a first step in taking the vast power of the Sun and using it to provide the world’s fuel needs,” she adds.
At this point, numerous research groups around the world are working with quantum dots towards producing devices that can harness the energy of the Sun more efficiently. Another primary direction of research is creating advanced catalysts that can keep up with the quantum dots.
“Creating catalytic devices which harvest light energy using quantum dots, or photovoltaic materials to drive the formation of synthetic fuels from water or carbon dioxide can be viewed as artificial photosynthesis,” UEA professor Chris Pickett concludes.