Artificial Leaf

Researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology have fine-tuned an artificial leaf design and used it to produce drugs for the first time.

Over the last few years humans have tried to mimic nature with artificial leaves, but they’re never quite up to scratch. Now, researchers have designed a new version that could work under real-world conditions, sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and creating oxygen and synthetic fuels.

Already used to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen, and in turn create liquid fuels and electricity, artificial leaves now have another string to their bow.​ A Harvard team has turned artificial leaves into low-cost, portable fertilizer factories.

​Leaves are kind of like nature’s power plants, converting sunlight into energy for the plant. Now a team at Eindhoven University of Technology is using artificial leaves to produce chemicals, which could lead to solar-powered “mini-factories” that can create drugs and chemicals almost anywhere.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) have developed a way to simulate photosynthesis using relatively low cost materials and a design based on the eye of a moth.

The "world's first practical artificial leaf" now has the ability to self-heal, enabling it to produce energy from dirty water.

Scientists have created what they say is the world's first practical artificial leaf, capable of producing energy from sunlight and water.

A team of scientists has presented a design strategy based on the chemistry and biology of natural leaves that could lead to working prototypes of an artificial leaf to produce hydrogen fuel.

Researchers have duplicated the light antenna of nature's most efficient photosynthesizer.