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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A possible game-changer in developing clean, renewable energy sources
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:05
	Publish Date:		2016-04-13 00:00:00
	Description:		Developing clean, renewable energy sources is a global challenge. But through advances in semiconductor nanowire technology, University of California, Berkeley chemist Peidong Yang has a potential game-changer in the field of artificial photosynthesis. Yang and his colleagues are developing a way to capture carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into a sustainable transportation fuel. Yang says the whole system looks like a semiconductor chip. "They look like a forest of nanowires. And underneath these forests basically, we culture these bacteria. So the bacteria basically is directly attached to the semiconductor surface." This artificial forest of nanowires could reduce carbon dioxide from the air in part by generating enough energy from sunlight. Basically it provides the capability to capture as much as possible, the solar spectrum, because that’s the energy input to these carbon dioxide reduction reactions. Second, it provides interface with these bacteria so that the bacteria can take the energy and the electron from the whole process and do the next step, which is the CO2 reduction.
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