Practicable Artificial Photosynthesis: Its Relevance, Fundamental Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

    The single main resource for the survival of humankind on this planet is the sunlight and it is freely coming to every home like the life-supporting gas, oxygen, is coming to every individual. When society becomes master in harvesting such a precious, Omnipresent, carbon-neutral, clean, freely and abundantly available renewable energy resource sunlight in a suitable form of chemical energy such as, H₂, O₂, CO, methanol, gasoline (petrol), diesel, etc., with a minimum conversion efficiency of 10% by using carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O) as energy storing materials, which is referred to as the “Practicable Artificial Photosynthesis (PAP)” process, it can be employed for commercial practice with economic viability to meet all the energy needs of the society without any back-up by electricity generated at thermal power plants by burning greenhouse gas CO₂ releasing fossil fuels. In fact, the PAP process is the only option available today for humankind to make energy, environment, economy, and life sustainable on our only habitable planet, Earth. In this article, (i) how the PAP process can change the global energy economy and energy dynamics of the world while solving all the humanities top 10 problems for the next 50 years, (ii) how the entire CO₂ gas generated as a waste across the globe at all the major outlets can be eventually converted into petrol (i.e., gasoline) given the fossil fuels cannot sustain our civilization’s economic growth, (iii) the effectiveness of existing CO₂ sequestration vs. carbon capture and utilization (CCU) processes, (iv) nature’s response to anthropogenic CO₂ gas rise in the atmosphere, (v) steps involved in the realization of a desirable PAP process, (vi) why silicon photovoltaic cell (SPVC) solar panels cannot solve the energy problems of our society considering the outcome of Germany’s Energiewende program, etc., have been meticulously presented and described in this article.