Chemistry

One big fear that the world is always faced with is what it would be if all the fossil fuel the it has been relying on are depleted. There is a continuously growing consumption of energy in all aspects of human life. The production processes all require enormous amounts of energy and they keep on growing each and very day. The consequences of these have been overexploitation of fossil fuel and which lead to great pollution of the environment.  The  from the statistics California institute of technology  indicate that since the year 1980 the major sources of energy on earth have been hydroelectric power , natural gas, coal , oil and other sources. Those that been have driving industries are the coal and oil. Out of these this sources, it is only hydroelectricity that is renewable but it is not sustainable. The reliance on oil, coal and gas has been consistently increasing in that by the year 1980 the total world oil energy consumption was just 140 quadrillion BTU, and cool and gas both 55 quadrillion BTU, but this has changed to 250 quadrillion BTU by the year 2000.

In attempt to mitigate this, many attempts are being made to come up with alternative energy sources. These energy sources should be renewable and sustainable. Many energy research organizations have always identified solar energy as the new frontier for energy production. This source is seen as being not only renewable and sustainable but also very environmentally friendly. The biggest challenge to the source has been how to tap it efficiently and cheaply. Even though there are already many methods that have been used for along time, they have not always achieved the level that can be productive enough. For example, there is the use of solar panels in various homes and some institutions but they are quite unreliable for any large-scale use. The world requires adequate energy to run the production plants in the manufacturing industries, enough energy to fuel up vehicles and for home consumption.

According to Caltech research, there has never been a time in history when fossil fuel consumption was highest as it has been in this century. This has made the global carbon levels to shift to very high concentrations. According to the research by the year 1800, the atmospheric carbon concentration was just 285 ppm but this has shifted to over 330 ppm by the year 2000 and continues to shoot. It openly shows how environmental pollution is high in this century and with it has come the threats of global warming.

Researchers have come up with various technologies that can help harness this abundant energy from the sun and use it productively. One of those technologies is the fuel cell technology by the researchers from the California institute of technology. These researchers, with the U.S. Department of Energys Lawrence

Berkeley National
Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is now in the process of a major breakthrough towards artificial photosynthesis. They are quite hopeful about the properties of nano-sized crystals of cobalt oxide. They are banking on cobalt oxide that can effectively carry out the crucial photosynthetic reaction of splitting water molecules.

Artificial photosynthesis will not add up to the green house gases and hence global warming. This will be a renewable resource for transportation energy. The idea is to create an artificial leaf that can duplicate the few steps of photosynthesis. That leaf can capture the solar photons and have a catalytic system in place that can oxidize water.

Heinz Frei and Feng Jiao have published the findings of their study in the journal AngewandteChemie. This research was carried out with help of the Helios Solar Energy Research Center (Helios SERC), a scientific program at Berkeley Lab under the direction of Paul Alivisatos. They are concentrating on developing fuels from sunlight. Frei is the deputy director of Helios SERC. Heinz Frei, who is a chemist with Berkeley Labs Physical Biosciences Division, explains, Photo-oxidation of water molecules into oxygen, electrons and protons (hydrogen ions) is one of the two essential half reactions of an artificial photosynthesis system  it provides the electrons needed to reduce carbon dioxide to a fuel. He again emphasized why he is putting lots on effort into cobalt oxide, Effective photo oxidation requires a catalyst that is both efficient in its use of solar photons and fast enough to keep up with solar flux in order to avoid wasting those photons. Clusters of cobalt oxide nanocrystals are sufficiently efficient and fast, and are robust (last a long time) and abundant.

They perfectly fit the bill.
Fredi also explained why they are not very keen on using iridium oxide for artificial photosynthesis. He stated though iridium oxide is efficient and fast enough for light absorption and a good catalyst but this metal is least abundant metal on earth. Hence, it is not very practical to use it on commercial scale. He says, We needed a metal that was equally effective but far more abundant. First, they tried to take the manganese based organ metallic complexes for artificial photosynthesis, which plants use in Photo system II. However, manganese-containing compounds were water insoluble and not very robust. Fredi and his team paid attention to cobalt oxide, which is a highly abundant material and fit for commercial use. Cobalt oxide also dissolves in water. However, it was not a success story right from the beginning. The micron-sized particles of cobalt oxide were ineffective and slow to act as catalysts. Then Frei and Jiao turned to nano-sized cobalt oxide. The yield for clusters of cobalt oxide (Co3O4) nano-sized crystals was about 1,600 times higher than for micron-sized particles, said Frei. And the turnover frequency (speed) was about 1,140 oxygen molecules per second per cluster, which is commensurate with solar flux at ground level (approximately 1,000 Watts per square meter). The next big step, however, will be to integrate the water oxidation half reaction with the carbon dioxide reduction step in an artificial leaf type system.

This research showed that by 2050 the worlds total energy requirement would be more than 20TW.This technology would be the ultimate solution to this energy challenge. When one critically analyses all the energy sources available on earth you conclude that harnessing the solar power is the only promising sustainable energy source. We have other renewable sources like wind with only 2.4 TW extractable, ocean and tides has a total of only 2TW, geothermal at 12TW but only a small fraction is recoverable. Finally, there is hydroelectric with a total of 4.6TW but only 1.6 is technically feasible with 0.9 TW economically feasible and 0.6 already installed.

Others, which are nonrenewable like nuclear, fossil and biomass all, cannot amount to any sustainability. Not all these can compare to the solar energy, which is 120000TW on the earth and 600TW practically trappable according to the Caltech research.

The technology described though complex in context show is a promising future as far as renewable energy is concerned. The presenters are convincing in the manner of approach to their idea. They seem to fully understand their course of action. They     understand the resources needed that can help them achieve this mission. They portray exuding confidence in their work, which gives one hope that it would lead to a great breakthrough, and help alleviate this fear of global warming. In fact, with this technology one can change the ideoalogyn that has been running over the 19th century that we live in doomed earth.