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Artificial Photosynthesis

Prof Andrea Sella reports on the race to better nature at harnessing the sun's energy, using cheap inorganic chemistry to turn photons into useable fuels.

Chemist Andrea Sella explores the current race to do photosynthesis better than nature ever achieved. In just a few hundred years mankind has burnt fossil fuels which had taken natural photosynthesis billions of years to create.

Now, around the world hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on the race to develop a robust, cheap and efficient way to turn water and the light from the sun into new fuels we can use. At a time when politicians everywhere debate the economics and climatic burdens of future energy needs, such a "Solar Fuel" would be a genuinely novel alternative energy.

Producer: Alex Mansfield.

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30 minutes

Last on

Wed 13 Jun 2012 21:00

Broadcast

  • Wed 13 Jun 2012 21:00

Podcast