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Artificial Photosynthesis: Beyond Mimicking Nature BNL-114802-2017-JA Artificial Photosynthesis: Beyond Mimicking Nature H. Dau, E . Fujita Submitted to ChemSusChem November 2017 Chemistry Department Brookhaven National Laboratory U.S. Department of Energy USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22) Notice: This manuscript has been authored by employees of Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE- SC0012704 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The publisher by accepting the manuscript for publication acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid- up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or any third party’s use or the results of such use of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof or its contractors or subcontractors. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Artificial Photosynthesis: Beyond Mimicking Nature Holger Dau,*[a] Etsuko Fujita,*[b] and Licheng Sun*[c, d] Emission of carbon dioxide by the burning of fossil fuels is Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions the predominant driving force of global warming and related as soon as possible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for climate changes with potentially catastrophic consequences. developing country Parties, and to undertake rapid reductions The evidence for this statement has been summarized in de- thereafter in accordance with best available science, so as to tailed reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources Change (IPCC, see http://www.ipcc.ch/). The IPCC proposes to and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of limit the temperature rise to a maximal level of 28C, in order this century, on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustain- to avoid the most severe consequences of global warming. able development and efforts to eradicate poverty.” It is remark- Reaching the 28C goal will require a drastic reduction in CO2 able and quite extraordinary in an international treaty that the emissions and thus a global transition towards CO2-neutral role of “best available science” is emphasized. Moreover, the energy systems. The recent IPPC reports emphasize the neces- Paris agreement leaves no doubts that the well-developed sity of reducing the net CO2 emission on a global scale to the economies should reach a CO2-neutral energy system earlier zero level within the second half of the 21st century.[1] This re- than in the second half of this century. This implies that al- quirement is not only well accepted among climate scientists, ready in 2050, the burning of fossil fuels should no longer be but is also largely accepted in the political arena, as manifested the rule but the exception in the technologically well-devel- by the Paris agreement, which was signed in December 2015 oped parts of the world. Such an earlier deadline for complete by nearly all countries organized within the United Nations mitigation of fossil-fuel usage clearly applies to the countries framework. The Paris agreement[2] declares a limitation on the represented by the contributors to this special issue of Chem- rise of the globally averaged air temperature to ideally 1.58C SusChem on artificial photosynthesis (AP). The Paris agreement and minimally 28C (Article 2), and specifies (Article 4): “In order may have stimulated their research efforts in addition to the to achieve the long-term temperature goal set out in Article 2, fascinating, but formidable scientific challenges associated with research on artificial photosynthesis. [a] Prof. Dr. H. Dau Department of Physics, Freie Universitt Berlin Non-Fossil Fuels Arnimallee 14, 14195 Berlin (Germany) E-mail: [email protected] [b] Dr. E. Fujita Massive use of renewable electricity from wind and solar Chemistry Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory power will be a key element of a global, CO -neutral energy Upton, NY 11973-5000 (USA) 2 E-mail: [email protected] system; energy storage in the form of batteries also will play [c] Prof. L. Sun an increasingly important role. However, the renewable pro- Department of Chemistry duction of electricity and its direct storage cannot facilitate a KTH Royal Institute of Technology complete substitution of fossil fuels. The storage density of Stockholm 10044 (Sweden) batteries is far below that of fuels with respect to both weight E-mail: [email protected] and volume. Consequently, parts of the transportation sector [d] Prof. L. Sun State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals cannot operate well with electricity only, specifically air trans- DUT-KTH Joint Education and Research Centre on Molecular Devices port and large oversea vessels. Even more striking is the un- Dalian University of Technology (DUT) solved storage problem. Conventional storage involving, for Dalian 116024 (PR China) example, pump stations for water reservoirs powering electri- The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can cal generators, cannot meet the demand on a global scale. be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201702106. Large-scale battery-based storage systems that compensate for This publication is part of a Special Issue on Artificial Photosynthesis for Sustainable Fuels. A link to the issue’s Table of Contents will appear here the diurnal rhythm of solar energy already represent a major once it is complete. scientific, technological and economic challenge—even more 1 Holger Dau received his physics diplo- so as the availability of the current raw materials for large-scale ma in 1985 and doctoral degree in applications may become increasingly problematic. However, 1989 in Kiel, Germany, working with storage capacity for meeting diurnal fluctuations is not even U.-P. Hansen, and at the Weizmann In- the main problem. Large-scale storage for clearly more extend- stitute (Rehovot, Israel, 1987–88). After ed periods ranging from several weeks to about one year is re- postdoctoral work with K. Sauer at quired to deal with the fluctuating wind energy supply, the U. C. Berkeley, USA, and H. Senger in annual rhythm of solar energy, and, last but not least, comfort- Marburg, Germany, he received his ha- able reserves for unforeseen developments relating to, among bilitation degree at the Biology De- other factors, (inter)national security issues. partment of Philipps University Mar- burg in 1994. Besides photosynthesis A future free of fossil fuels does not need to be a fuel-free research in Marburg, he developed bi- future. Alternative options for CO2-neutral production of fossil otest applications at bbe Moldaenke GmbH (1997–1999). Since fuels are listed in Figure 1. The sequence in this (incomplete) 2000, he has been a full Professor at the Physics Department of list is determined by the relatedness of the respective route to the Free University in Berlin, Germany, where he investigates bio- oxygenic photosynthesis in its native environment, with logical and synthetic metal sites with X-ray spectroscopy and com- power-to-X in position 9 being the least related technological plementary methods. His current focus lies in catalysis of water route. oxidation, H2 formation and CO2 reduction, in both biological and non-biological systems. Mimicking Biological Photosynthesis? errestrial plants, algae, and cyanobacteria are capable of Etsuko Fujita is a senior chemist with T photosynthesis. Driven by solar energy, they use water and at- tenure and leader of the AP group in mospheric CO as raw materials for the formation of carbo- the Chemistry Division at Brookhaven 2 hydrates.[3] These carbohydrates ’fuel’ biological cells regarding National Laboratory (BNL). She is the metabolic maintenance and growth (biomass formation). At- recipient of the 2008 BNL Science and mospheric O is formed as a byproduct. Consequently, this Technology Award for outstanding re- 2 form of photosynthesis, which clearly is predominant on earth, search in solar fuels generation. She is denoted as oxygenic photosynthesis. Without any overstate- received a B.S. in Chemistry from ment: Life on earth is fueled in a highly sustainable way by Ochanomizu University, Tokyo and a oxygenic photosynthesis. The “success” of oxygenic photosyn- Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Georgia thesis renders the biological process a paradigmatic demon- Institute of Technology. She joined her stration of large-scale production of non-fossil fuels driven by current group in 1986. Her major solar energy. This has led to the idea of artificial photosynthesis research interest is solar fuels generation from H O and CO , focus- 2 2 as a biomimetic version of biological photosynthesis. Yet ing on mechanistic and kinetic investigations. today, close synthetic mimics of the biological system are no longer conceived as a technologically attractive option. Why is that? Licheng Sun received his PhD degree in 1990 from Dalian University of Tech- Biological photosynthesis has been evolutionarily optimized nology (DUT), and went to Germany as for billions of years and refined by breeding of agricultural a postdoc at the Max Planck Institut plant species. In several regards, the performance characteris- fr Strahlenchemie with Dr. Helmut tics of photosynthetic organisms are unmatched by recent Gçrner (1992-1993), and then as an technological systems.
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