Inspiring artificial leaf design deemed impractical
MAY 24, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026062
Nature : Although notable for its simple design, the artificial leaf proposed last year by a team from MIT has been put on the back burner. Made of silicon, the leaf works much like a real one in that it turns sunlight into storable fuel by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. However, because the artificial leaf does not offer any significant savings over other methods of making hydrogen from sunlight, Sun Catalytix, the company founded to produce the leaf, has decided to hold off on its production. Instead it will work to improve the leaf’s design in order to reduce costs—for example, by reducing the amount of silicon needed or finding ways to make the panel configuration more cheaply.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
