Research Teams Develop Breakthrough Method To Grow Food Without Sunlight

A pair of research teams have discovered a way to create food without the need for sunlight through a highly efficient artificial photosynthesis method.

The teams based at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware published their findings in the journal Nature Food, with the discovery also spreading throughout many major life science marketing publications.

Photosynthesis is one of the most important biological processes on the planet, with light, carbon dioxide and water being converted into oxygen, and sugars. This, by extension, grows the food we eat.

However, according to UC Riverside, only one per cent of this energy actually ends up in the plant, making photosynthesis remarkably inefficient for how important it is.

The solution they found was to use an electrocatalytic process that converts carbon dioxide, water and electricity into acetate, one of the main components of vinegar, that food-producing organisms can then consume to grow.

In a study comparing photosynthesis to this two-step process powered by solar panels, the researchers found that it is 18 times more efficient to use solar energy to power artificial photosynthesis than the traditional biological process.

The experiment attempted to grow a range of organisms, including green algae, mushrooms (using the fungus mycelium) and yeast, the latter of which can be produced 18 times more efficiently than the traditional method of cultivating sugar taken from corn harvests.

Other crops that the team believe could be grown this way include tobacco, tomato, cowpea, green pea, canola and rice, the latter of which highlights the potential major benefits of doing so.

With climate change causing considerable damage and fundamental changes to the places that are currently used for agriculture through droughts and floods, global food security relies on developing methods to grow more food with fewer resources and in otherwise unsuitable spaces.

This could also potentially lead to more ambitious space missions, as efficient artificial photosynthesis provides a potential method to produce food that is nutritious, palatable and more plentiful than current methods.