EU-funded project A-LEAF looks to produce fuels from CO2

In Spain, the EU-funded project A-LEAF is working towards a system that will use sunlight directly to transform waste carbon dioxide (CO2) into valuable chemical fuels using a clean, fast and cost-effective process.

The researchers are developing a device that replicates the natural process of photosynthesis carried out by green plants to store energy. The resulting ‘artificial leaf’ will take in sunlight to transform water and CO2 into oxygen and valuable chemicals.

‘By the end of the project, there is no doubt we will have a prototype able to transform water and CO2 into a valuable product – hopefully a fuel – exclusively using sunlight,’ says project coordinator José Ramón Galán-Mascarós of the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Spain. ‘But the real challenge is that we are going to use exclusively earth-abundant materials and industrially acceptable processes.’