How photosynthesis is inspiring solar power research - The Guardian

The impacts that people have upon the global environment has been a concern to scientists for more than 100 years. These impacts are due, in large part, to the fuels we use. To reduce environmental damage, people must develop and use alternative fuel sources.

“The one source of energy that is abundant across the developed and the developing world is the sun’s energy”, says chemist Robin Perutz, a professor at the University of York and Fellow of the Royal Society.

“We need to learn how to use more of the sun’s energy both to generate our electricity and our fuels.”

To meet the planet’s growing energy needs, scientists are casting their eyes towards plants, which long ago perfected the process of capturing the sun’s rays â€" light energy â€" and transforming that into starch â€" chemical energy â€" that can be stored. Might scientists be able to adapt the photosynthetic process pioneered by plants and adapt it to meet human demands?

Physical chemist Elizabeth Gibson, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle, is working to do just that. Her research focuses on designing solar cell and solar fuel devices that function at a molecular level. To accomplish this, her group specialises in developing dye-sensitised nanostructured electrodes for use in tandem dye-sensitised solar cells that capture light energy under a variety of conditions.

In this fascinating video, Professor Perutz and Dr Gibson discuss what inspired them to pursue their research careers and how new ideas such as alternative fuels were built upon old ideas like the greenhouse effect, which were published in the world’s oldest scientific journal Philosophical Transactions:

Video by The Royal Society.

This film is part of a series of science stories that celebrate 350 years of scientific publishing by the Royal Society. You can find The Royal Society on twitter @RoyalSociety and Royal Society Publishing is also on twitter @RSocPublishing

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