By manipulating carbon nitride to use sunlight to create molecules, researches have claimed they have discovered the ‘holy grail’ of chemical manufacturing with no waste.
Chemical engineers based at the University of Manchester have found that carbon nitride can be manipulated to take advantage of solar energy to synthesise fluorine-based organic molecules, which is the basis for many agro-chemical and pharmaceutical solutions.
The process, known as ‘photocatalysis’ could transform the chemical manufacturing and toll processing world, removing the need for many energy-intensive processes in the production of chemicals, as sunlight (or artificial light with the same properties) can trigger chemical reactions.
These can take place at much lower temperatures and in more ambient conditions. The complication with applying this on an industrial scale however is that sunlight is not reliable enough a source of energy, and generating artificial light strong enough is currently very inefficient.
However, the benefits of developing photocatalytic processes are so beneficial to the environment because not only would the resulting chemical products be cleaner and more sustainable, but fossil fuels could be removed from the process.
What this research presents is a new potential approach for chemical processing, where many of the primary catalysts can be replaced by widely available compounds that are non-toxic.
Currently, the focus of research has been in agricultural chemicals and pharmaceuticals, where the non-toxic production element is most vital.
However, if a viable photocatalytic process can be found, it may revolutionise toll processing across the board and create a huge market for specialist chemical services.