Artificial photosynthesis of oxalate and oxalate-based polymer by a photovoltaic reactor

Abstract

A photovoltaic reactor was designed for artificial photosynthesis, based on the reactions involved in high energy hydrogen atoms, which were produced from water electrolysis. Water and CO2, under the conditions studied, were converted to oxalate (H2C2O4) and a polymer. This was the first time that the oxalates and oxalate-based polymer were produced from the artificial photosynthesis process.

Hydrogen production using photobiological methods

“…To overcome those difficulties, some researchers have focused on artificial leaves for artificial photosynthesis to generate clean hydrogen. Hybrid strategies for solar water splitting based on dyesensitized photoelectrosynthetic cells (Alibabaei et al, 2013), by proposing natural to artificial photosynthesis with artificial photocatalysts, hybrid photocatalysts for water oxidation/proton reduction and hydrogen evolution, as well as construction of complete photocatalytic system for hydrogen and oxygen evolution from water (Barber and Tang, 2013), used a photovoltaic reactor for artificial photosynthesis, based on water electrolysis to produce high-energy hydrogen atoms (Nong et al, 2014). An artificial photosynthetic system using TiO 2 was developed that has the features of photosynthesis to overcome the challenge of solar-driven water splitting and CO 2 reduction.…”

“…The three key components for solar energy conversion in artificial photosynthesis are light harvesting, charge separation, and catalysis (McConnell, Li, & Brudvig, 2010). According to Nocera (2012), a light-dependent reaction is required to mimic photosynthesis. Hence, artificial leaves were constructed by adding catalysts (Co-OEC and NiMoZn) to a light-harvesting silicon-based semiconductor to split water.…”

“…The oxygen-evolving complex and ferredoxin reductase of the photosynthetic membrane are replaced by Co-OEC and NiMoZn OER and HER catalysts, respectively, to perform water splitting. Figure and legend adopted from Nocera (2012 proton-conducting membrane (Nafion), in which protons are reduced to hydrogen gas. In this way, water splitting (generation of H 2 and O 2 ) can be achieved with high efficiency separately in two different systems.…”

Generation of Hydrogen, Lignin and Sodium Hydroxide from Pulping Black Liquor by Electrolysis

“…The cationic electrolytic reactor is the key device in the system [17]; the reactor consisted of a large anode chamber, which is equipped with a cathode plate. A 20 cm 2 cationic exchange membrane (CEM) was used as the separation membrane.…”

Investigation of Organic Polymerization in Treating Waste Water by Electrolysis

“…Besides electro-oxidation reactions, organic polymerization is considered as another mechanism for enhancing pollutants removal in treating wastewater by electrolysis. This consideration is based on the practices that many of polymers generated and then became precipitates in the electrolytic reactor in our previous research on artificial photosynthesis [20]. Therefore, an investigation of the organic polymerization in wastewater water by electrolysis is carried out to test the consideration in this paper.…”