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You must have studied in your school textbooks that photosynthesis by plants is necessary for food production. Now scientists are rewriting this story!

Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists now have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis.

The research, published in Nature Food, uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water into acetate, the form of the main component of vinegar. Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow. Combined with solar panels to generate the electricity to power the electrocatalysis, this hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18 times more efficient for some foods.

This  new way of producing food could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis.

In order to integrate all the components of the system together, the output of the electrolyzer was optimized by scientists to support the growth of food-producing organisms. Electrolyzers are devices that use electricity to convert raw materials like carbon dioxide into useful molecules and products. The amount of acetate produced was increased while the amount of salt used was decreased, resulting in the highest levels of acetate ever produced in an electrolyzer to date.

Using a state-of-the-art two-step tandem CO2 electrolysis setup developed in the laboratory, researchers were able to achieve a high selectivity towards acetate that cannot be accessed through conventional CO2 electrolysis routes.

Experiments showed that a wide range of food-producing organisms can be grown in the dark directly on the acetate-rich electrolyzer output, including green algae, yeast, and fungal mycelium that produce mushrooms. Producing algae with this technology is approximately fourfold more energy efficient than growing it photosynthetically. Yeast production is about 18-fold more energy efficient than how it is typically cultivated using sugar extracted from corn.

Artificial photosynthesis: Credit: Nature Food (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-022-00530-x

Scientists were able to grow food-producing organisms without any contributions from biological photosynthesis. Typically, these organisms are cultivated on sugars derived from plants or inputs derived from petroleum—which is a product of biological photosynthesis that took place millions of years ago. This technology is a more efficient method of turning solarenergy into food, as compared to food production that relies on biological photosynthesis.

When tested, cowpea, tomato, tobacco, rice, canola, and green pea were all able to utilize carbon from acetate when cultivated in the dark.

By liberating agriculture from complete dependence on the sun, artificial photosynthesisopens the door to countless possibilities for growing food under the increasingly difficult conditions imposed by

anthropogenic climate change (ACC). Drought, floods, and reduced land availability would be less of a threat to global food security if crops for humans and animals grew in less resource-intensive, controlled environments. Crops could also be grown in cities and other areas currently unsuitable for agriculture, and even provide food for future space explorers.

Using artificial photosynthesis approaches to produce food could be a paradigm shift for how we feed people. By increasing the efficiency of food production, less land is needed, lessening the impact agriculture has on the environment.

 Elizabeth C. Hann et al, A hybrid inorganic–biological artificial photosynthesis system for energy-efficient food production, Nature Food (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-022-00530-x

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