Science fiction stories imagine future humans living in underground cities on Mars, hollow asteroids, and free-floating space stations far from the sun. But if humans are to survive in any of these harsh and alien environments, they will need ways to grow food using limited resources.
Some scientists wonder if it is possible to produce food more efficiently by growing plants in a dark environment where there is no photosynthesis.
While the idea may sound as science fiction as cities on Mars, a team of researchers has taken the first step towards realizing the idea with a study published in Nature Food. Research shows that it is possible to grow plants in the dark with a carbon-based compound called acetate, which is produced using solar energy. Scientists hope this method, a type of "artificial photosynthesis," could unlock new ways of producing food using less physical space and energy than conventional agriculture.
While other experts are skeptical that such a radical redesign of plant biology will be possible, they are also excited by the technology the researchers have invented and the team's groundbreaking ideas on how it can make food production more efficient.
"We have to find ways to grow plants more efficiently," said study author Feng Jiao, a professor of chemistry and bio-molecular engineering at the University of Delaware. Which [solution] is the best? I think the beauty of science is that we explore all possibilities.” says.
More Efficient than Nature?
Except for a few extreme environments, such as deep-sea hot springs powered by the chemical energy of hydrogen sulfide bubbling through cracks in the seafloor, all life on Earth is powered by the sun. Even top predators like tigers and sharks are part of complex food webs that extend to plants and tiny green algae in the oceans. These so-called primary producers are through photosynthesis, a biochemical process powered by sunlight; It has the ability to produce organic carbon from carbon dioxide.
The researchers found that several types of mushroom-producing fungus (white in these images) can grow using acetate from a solar electrolyzer as the sole carbon and energy source. Normally, such fungi depend on organic carbon produced by photosynthesizing plants.
But while photosynthesis is essential for life as we know it, it's not very efficient: Only one percent of the sunlight that falls on plants is actually captured and used to make organic carbon. If humans want to establish a self-sustaining presence in space, reproduction using as few resources as possible in this inefficient environment will be a challenge.
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At the same time, the pressure of farmers to get more yield from existing land in the face of increasing world population is a problem in the world today.
Some scientists believe the solution lies in genetic engineering that will allow plants to photosynthesize more efficiently. The researchers behind the new study propose something more extraordinary: replacing biological photosynthesis with a partially artificial process to convert sunlight into food. The researchers behind the new study say their work has been paired for the first time with an artificial photosynthetic system's attempt to grow common food-producing organisms.
The researchers' systems rely on using an electric current to drive chemical reactions within a device called an electrolyzer, or electrolyzer. In their latest work, the researchers created a two-stage, solar-powered electrolyzer system that converts carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and acetate, a simple carbon-based compound.
The authors then fed this acetate to Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a photosynthetic green alga. They also gave acetate to nutritional yeasts and fungi-producing fungi, which do not photosynthesize on their own but need organic carbon produced by plants to grow.
A type of algae called Chlamydomonas, which normally needs sunlight to boost photosynthesis, grows well in the dark, turning a bottle of acetate green (right). The control flask (left) did not contain acetate. All of these organisms were able to take up acetate and grow in the dark, regardless of sunlight or photosynthetically derived carbon.
Compared to photosynthesis, the process was surprisingly efficient. Using artificial photosynthesis, green algae can convert solar energy into biomass about four times more efficiently than products using biological photosynthesis.
Yeast grown using this process was almost 18 times more energy efficient than crops.
“This is one of the major advantages of using artificial roads over nature's ways,” Jiao says.
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