A graduate student from the Royal College of Art has developed artificial leaf

Man has long been looking into space, making the first tentative attempts to go beyond the atmosphere of the planet, and settle on other planets. In doing so, we can help artificial plants that can absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Melchiorri Julian (Julian Melchiorri), a graduate student of the Royal College of Art, has developed a synthetic sheet capable of performing functions of a normal green leaf: absorb CO2 and produce oxygen.




The project is called Silk Leaf Project, and its author has attracted the cooperation of staff at Tufts University (Tufts University). The project is part of the course Innovation Design Engineering.

Artificial leaf uses chloroplasts extracted from normal green plants. Chloroplasts are placed in a protein environment (silk), which allows the chloroplasts do not coagulate, and evenly distributed over the entire thickness of the liquid.

// player.vimeo.com/video/101734446 video>

While it is unclear how such a list can reproduce oxygen as you need carbon dioxide. It is also unknown how long the work of this "sheet". Nevertheless, the idea is interesting, and if it can still be used in the projects of NASA, it is - a huge plus project.



According to the authors of the project, a new development can be used in an urban environment - for consumption of CO2 and production of oxygen. Here's how it might look.







Source: geektimes.ru/post/243369/