Engineers at the University of Chicago have created a new kind of solar cell that efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into usable hydrocarbon fuel—and it does so using only sunlight for energy.
In a new paper published in Science, engineer Amin Salehi-Khojin and colleagues describe the new system, which can turn CO2 into fuel at a cost that’s comparable to producing gasoline.
Instead of producing energy in an unsustainable one-way route from fossil fuels to greenhouse gas, we can now reverse the process and recycle atmospheric carbon into fuel using sunlight,” noted Salehi-Khojin in a press statement.