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Scientists Use Artificial Leaves To Create Medicine

Photo from Pixabay

Researchers in the Netherlands have found an innovative way to make medicine using an artificial leaf that is solar-powered. The leaf contains a prototype reactor designed after real leaves, turning sunlight into food via photosynthesis.

Scientists have been struggling to come up with solutions to catalyze chemical reactions by using only solar energy. It has been a difficult process, as sunlight does not provide enough energy to start reactions, UPI reports.

However, a team at Eindhoven University of Technology found a way to make this possible through the use of a new kind of material known as luminescent solar concentrators, or LSCs. Much like leaves, this material is able to concentrate sunlight. But instead of directing sunlight to specific energy centers, the light-sensitive particles convert sunlight to a certain color and drive this towards the edges of the LSC.

LSCs are already in use as a way to boost the performance of solar cells. So the researchers came up with the idea of using them to trigger chemical reactions. Their breakthrough happened when they brought LSCs together with microchannels.

Using leaf-shaped, silicon rubber LSCs, the scientists pumped chemicals through tiny channels in these leaves. This brought the chemicals into contact with the concentrated solar energy, thus generating a chemically-induced reaction.

Timothy Noel, lead researcher, said, “Even an experiment on a cloudy day demonstrated that the chemical production was 40 percent higher than in a similar experiment without LSC material.” He explained,

We still see plenty of possibilities for improvement. We now have a powerful tool at our disposal that enables the sustainable, sunlight-based production of valuable chemical products like drugs or crop protection agents.

The researchers hope that their results will soon be used in more sustainable and less toxic drug production, resulting in safer medicines.

“Using a reactor like this means you can make drugs anywhere, in principle, whether malaria drugs in the jungle or paracetamol on Mars,” Noel said. “All you need is sunlight and this mini-factory.”

The study was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

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