Talk:Artificial photosynthesis/Archive 1

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Water splitting
One method of hydrogen production is water splitting, the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen and one way of doing this uses sunlight. (I reworded this before moving it here.)

How is this relevant to this article? Brian Jason Drake 10:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Artificial photosynthesis is not limited to production hydrocarbons from CO2 but includes generating hydrogen from water, see water splitting en reference see for example: http://www.physorg.com/news3122.html. V8rik 17:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Concept verses reality!
It doesn't seem to me that anybody has succeeded in artificially photosynthesizing CO2 & O2 using natural sunlight! This article in effect describes a concept which is being studied and not a "a man-made process". If someone more informed can give more information then please do, otherwise please re-write this article to reflect the fact that this is only a concept. --DelftUser 07:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

J Read

 * J Read writes in his Text-Book of Organic Chemistry (G Bell & Sons, London, 1935) of a two-stage reaction which, if true as stated, does succeed. He notes that carbonic acid is reduced to formaldehyde in sunlight in the presence of colloidal ferric hydroxide (he credits this step to one "Moore"): H2CO3 -> HCHO + O2. The formaldehyde can then be polymerised to a mixture of hexoses using lime water (Loew 1886 and subsequently Emil Fischer). Nature does not use this method (the "formose" syrup created is a racemic mixture whereas natural sugars are chiral). Dajwilkinson 00:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds intriguing but the your reference is old! 1935 or a typo? V8rik 19:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Effective catalytic separation of Hydrogen and Oxygen from water from solar power
Perhaps this artificial photosynthesis has finally been made more efficiently by Daniel Nocera and his research team on MIT. Can anyone with more knowledge and maybe a degree in chemistry who analyse this more appropriately?

Sources:

Video explanation of the new technology on MIT web TV

Concerning article on MIT web

//Nick 81.234.194.133 (talk) 18:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * See, Photogeneration cell on Photoelectrochemical cell. Mion (talk) 23:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Research?
Perhaps the 'Research' section could be renamed 'Press Releases' as that is what it contains? Either no further information exists, in which case that should be clearly noted, or else someone out there has a link to a paper or even a laymans explanation of the technology concerned? 131.111.21.21 (talk) 12:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

"Now", "currently" ... when?
The section Research / Photoelectrochemical cell /  Disadvantages contains two time-sensitive statements. There's no hint as to when these statements were (will be?) true, and no hint as to when they might become untrue. Moveover, they're unreferenced. That's why I've peppered "fact" tags all over the shop.--Rfsmit (talk) 16:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

featured in demonstrated on the PBS show, "making things"
the pbs show "making things" featured this process in their show. The article should probably reference that. It showed it creating hydrogen gas. It definatly works, for all the skeptics that wrote that it was only a theory. maybe a seperate article should be written about how new technology competes with old fossil fuel technology and threatens the profits of the oil barons, so they have tried for decades to suppress new technologies like this one!(and that needs to stop once and for all!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gawdsmak (talk • contribs) 11:36, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Storage of Solar AND Nuclear Energy
We need to ask ourselves, "What is the goal of Artificial Photosysnthesis ?" When asked in the context of solar energy, it is simply to produce a useful product other than electricity -- and one that can be easily stored, transported and used. Hydrogen is sometimes hyped as such a product, but realistically, when handled as a free gas, it is anything but -- perhaps someone will find a way to dissolve it in another medium to meet that goal. For now, our remaining option is to tie the hydrogen onto some carbon to produce various hydrocarbons or carbohydrates -- hence Artificial Photosynthesis.

There is another energy source that has energy storage problems -- namely, nuclear energy. Since it currently produces only electricity and heat (as well as nuclear flux), we feel (without wholly complete justification) that we are constrained to locate these plants near the energy point of use -- population centers. The Japanese may now (March 2011) become the leaders in altering this view.

Were nuclear plants sited remotely from population centers and their energy outputs used to produce hydrocarbon fuels (say, butane), it appears that we could meet our transportation fuel needs handily, as well as other energy needs, using our existing fuel transport infrastructure -- pipelines and oil tankers.

Of course, the catch is that we PRESENTLY do not have the necessary nuclear energy to fuel conversion process available. The energy industry appears to be waiting for it to miraculously and spontaneously appear on a roadside tree in Nepal -- I am certain that the oil industry is NOT praying for it.

Note that the hydrocarbon fuels so produced will STILL not be wholly free of the production of air poluution, since when used in internal combustion engines, oxides of nitrogen will be produced. . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.26.51.167 (talk) 21:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality Issue
The claim made under Photoelectrochemical Cell, "The government funding has helped Nocera make the research possible and in turn he is providing them with strong results", is on its own a heavily biased statement. Furthermore, many leaders in the field of photoelectrochemistry question the quality and originality of the results to which this article alludes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ANieland (talk • contribs) 21:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I've removed the fluffy language in question. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 14:12, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed that this page is biased towards certain professors which it cites more often than others. For example, in the history section, Professor Nocera's accomplishments are mentioned twice whereas Professor Gray of Caltech and Professor McFarland of UCSB, both of whom have contributed significantly are not mentioned.--Superwizard (talk) 03:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Dr. Nocera is mentioned several times in the article because he has made significant contributions to the study of artificial photosynthesis, not because the article is "biased." If you think these other gentlemen have made significant contributions to this field then why don't you add information about them to the page? MisterUnit (talk) 00:48, 18 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem with that is that it is hard to add information about all these professors. One could fill up the wikipedia article with accomplishments of professors such as, Dr. Gray or Dr. Lewis or Dr. Peidong Yang, all of whom have arguably contributed to this field as much as or more than Dr. Nocera. --Superwizard (talk) 06:40, 18 June 2012 (UTC)


 * What you just wrote seems to contradict itself. If these professors have contributed as much to the field as Dr. Nocera, then why would it be hard to add information about their research to the article?  You don't necessarily need to think of it as filling up the article.  Just add what you know, and what you can source, and if the article starts to become too lengthy then trim down some other parts of the article.


 * I wouldn't remove any of the mentions of Nocera just because you think the article is biased though. The point here is to get a summary of all of the research on artificial photosynthesis in one place. If people have done that thus far by pointing to Nocera's research a lot then that's fine.  If editors want to write about research in this field by pointing to other scientists, companies, of professors then that's fine too.  The important thing here is to retain all the information, not to give an honorable mention to every professor who works in this area. MisterUnit (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is necessary to remove information about Nocera either, but more info on others may very well be lacking. Wikipedia doesn't run out of space, we don't need to remove some things in order to add others :). PatríciaR msg 14:21, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect info in image file name
In the picture of Profs. Nocera, Yang, and Faunce, both the file name and the caption incorrectly referred to Peidong Yang's affiliation as Caltech. I corrected the caption and the file info on wikimedia, but the file name is quite large, misinforming anyone who clicks on the image. The uploader has no talk page, so I thought I'd start here. Is there a better way to address problems like this? Flutiki (talk) 01:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I have asked for the file to be renamed on Commons, according to Commons:File renaming. PatríciaR msg 13:15, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Resource
Tweaking Photosynthesis; By altering how plants turn sunlight into chemical energy, scientists hope to produce biofuels that make economic sense by David Biello SciAm January 5, 2012

See Economics of global warming 97.87.29.188 (talk) 01:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

First 'Practical' Artificial Leaf
Nocera has stated that he has created the 'first practical artificial leaf'. However this claim is quite ambiguous. First and foremost, what does practical mean? Does that mean commercially viable? If so, that claim needs to be retracted as "Sun Catalyix ... has recently said that it won’t be scaling up the prototype for field tests. The device offers few savings over other ways to make hydrogen from sunlight, the company says". (http://www.nature.com/news/artificial-leaf-faces-economic-hurdle-1.10703).

Furthermore, this is not the first time such a cell has been demonstrated (Lin, G. H.;  Kapur, M.;  Kainthla, R. C.; Bockris, J. O'M. One-Step Method to Produce  Hydrogen by a Triple Stack Amorphous-Silicon Solar-Cell. Appl. Phys. Lett. 1989, 55, 386–387) nor the first time only earth abundant elements have been used (Rocheleau, R. E.; Miller, E. L.; Misra, A. High-Efficiency Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Production using Multijunction Amorphous Silicon Photoelectrodes. Energy Fuels 1998, 12, 3–10). --Superwizard (talk) 00:32, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Right... I think you should probably familiarize yourself with WP:COI before you continue to contribute to this article. MisterUnit (talk) 00:52, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I am quite familiar with WP:COI, thank you very much. I would gladly disclose any COI if I had any but I do not. I would appreciate it if you disclosed any COI yourself. I am quite familiar in the field and I am striving to make this article more neutral and quite frankly I am not sure how anyone can argue that the claim of 'first practical leaf' is in any way neutral. My original qualms still stand. The cells that were shown by Bockris in 1989 or Misra in 1998 could also claim to be the first 'practical' leaf. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines practical as: capable of being put to use or account. We know that the Misra and Bockris systems are not scalable but nor is Nocera's 2008 system! This isn't my statement, this is what Sun Catalyix itself claims.--Superwizard (talk) 20:23, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to start this by disclosing that I work in the field. I haven't done so for very long (about a year), but my boyfriend has been working also in the field for quite longer. Due to the fact that I have been in the past doing some sensitive stuff on other projects (including being a checkuser and an ombudsman), I've not really wanted to disclose my identity around Wikimedia, but there's a time when things must be told as they are. So I work in the field, I'm more into the biological part, so nuances about artificial catalysts do escape me. I have extensively edited the article, and intend to do some more editing in the future, independently of what WP:COI says because goshdarnit, we are the bloody experts, we know how to explain these concepts to people. As long as you write in a neutral fashion, who cares whom you work for. OK, to the important part then.

So, what we may want to start thinking here is how one defines artificial leaf. I'll read the refs Superwizard left whenever I can (not now, it's late here in Europe), but the questions I'll leave are:
 * Are the other designs in a leaf form? That is, all components in a thin device that incorporates both photosensitizers that work with sunlight, and catalysts?
 * Are the other designs able to work in water? One of them is working in 1N base, which is hardly "physiological" - is this comparable to a leaf?

These are not trivial issues. As far as I interpret it, an artificial leaf must replicate natural photosynthesis, if not by form then by concept - water splitting by sunlight. So it has to work in water, has to work under natural sunlight, and has to be an all-in-one device. Everything else is components of (hydrogen) fuel cells.

It seems to me most people actually editing the article are closely related to the people mentioned in the article, so why don't we all get along, heh?

By the way, I hate the History section. I didn't want to delete info, but some of it looks like really trivial stuff to me. What can we do about it? PatríciaR msg 22:28, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply PatríciaR. As I've disclosed, I also work in this field. My main concern is that the claim of a 'practical artificial leaf' strange and vague. Here let me state that I am in no way trying to get a certain viewpoint across or anything. In my opinion no one has a 'practical artificial leaf' that works because no one has demonstrated a systems that is scalable and cost efficient. If there was one I would be ecstatic!


 * The devices I mentioned earlier fit the definition you mentioned. They work in water, under natural sunlight, and are all-in-one devices. That said they might be using a pH greater than what a biological system can sustain. In my understanding of a 'practical artificial leaf' however, having a pH that biological systems can survive in isn't really necessary.


 * I too share qualms about the history section as a whole. In my opinion it just reads too much like a highlights section for different professors (here I am speaking in general). I would love it if we could somehow restructure it.--Superwizard (talk) 23:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to offend, I just noticed that you have a new account and that the vast majority of your edits have been to the artificial photosynthesis and JCAP pages. On the artificial photosynthesis page you have basically made 3 edits - The first was an edit on the talk page claiming that the article is biased towards Nocera's research, the second also on the talk page saying that Nocera did not in fact invent a practical artificial leaf based on your criteria for practicality, and the third an edit to the article mentioning that Nocera's leaf is not yet commercially viable.  I'm not trying to continue the debate, but can you see why I might suspect there could be a COI here?


 * I don't necessarily disagree with anything that you've said, I just want to make sure that you're here to contribute information to the article, and not to push a different agenda. If you actually have no COI then you have nothing to worry about. MisterUnit (talk) 19:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * One more thing - I'm removing the quotes from the edit that you made at the end of the history section. You wrote that "Sun Catalytix stated..." right before the quote, but then took a quote from the author of the Nature article, not from anybody at Sun Catalytix.  That is extremely misleading. MisterUnit (talk) 19:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * MisterUnit, how about we just start again. :) I think we can all agree that the history section just isn't up to par. For example, in one sentence it says: The cell is mostly made of inexpensive materials that are widely available, works under simple conditions, and shows increased stability over previous catalysts. That is like saying: the car is made out of carbon fiber and shows increased speed over previous tires! Anyhow I think more importantly the whole section needs to be revamped.


 * We should ask ourselves: what do we want the history section to be about? Currently it is a mismatch of statements about a) Centers that are founded for artificial photosynthesis and b) Discoveries of different catalysts that are applicable to artificial photosynthesis in some way. My original issue was that if we were to include all catalysts that engage in water splitting or artificial photosynthesis we would have an extremely long history section. For example, for hydrogen evolution we would need to include the original discoverers of NiMo, NiCo, NiMoCo, NiFe, MoS2, Pt monolayer on WC, etc. And that is only heterogeneous hydrogen evolution catalysts! If we were to be thorough we would also need to include homogenous catalysts and then also all the work that has been done to find proper semiconductors for as light absorbers (all that work on TiO2 comes to mind). The resulting history section would be (in my opinion at least) long and unwieldy. We can perhaps create a separate entry about catalysts for artificial photosynthesis?


 * On a separate note: I did not mean to be misleading about the citation, I was trying to quote it correctly the Science article which states: and in the The device offers few savings over other ways to make hydrogen from sunlight, the company says. I wasn't sure how to properly cite it as it wasn't Science that was stating that the device offered few savings but the company itself. In any way I apologize for the confusion. --Superwizard (talk) 21:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

24.50.151.151 (talk) 20:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC) http://phys.org/news/2014-12-low-cost-artificial-leaf-hydrogen-fuel.html

does "artificial leaf" redirect here?

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