Photosynthesis

Lessons to be learned from nature in photosynthesis

posted on: september 23, 2011 - 4:30pm

Photosynthesis is one of nature's finest miracles. Through the photosynthetic process, green plants absorb sunlight in their leaves and convert the photonic energy into chemical energy that is stored as sugars in the plants' biomass. If we can learn from nature and develop an artificial version of photosynthesis we would have an energy source that is absolutely clean and virtually inexhaustible.

"Solar energy is forecasted to provide a significant fraction of the world's energy needs over the next century, as sunlight is the most abundant source of energy we have at our disposal," says Graham Fleming, Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California (UC) Berkeley who holds a joint appointment with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). "However, to utilize solar energy harvested from sun¬light efficiently we must understand and improve both the effective cap¬ture of photons and the transfer of electronic excitation energy."/.../