Thursday, July 21, 2011

Back to artificial photosynthesis

In the last chapter of the concept, we had vertical nanotube sheets embedded in light transparent polyethelyne or equivalent. There are way to mass produce this I think.

Using this we make half acre size flat bags tat float on the ocean. Their bottoms have equivalent vertical nanotube sheets. We flow algae through tubes of this stuff, which we unfurl from small ocean trawlers.
The top side performs electron exchange due to the tuned properties of the nanotube. So, our algae, minus clorophyll, feed on this ionized nutrient soup on the top underside. The bottom side admits sea nutrients, including CO2??

Hmm, if we could get the top layer to take in CO2 and deliver CO, that could be great! That is, we have carbon nanotube, it should be easy to move CO thru the tube, the most efficient thing for a bucky ball, right? So the top layer knocks off two steps in photosynthesis, greatly simplifying the task of genetic engineering. We have a trade wherin we can mix up the 'culture' of the tubes, some delivering H+, some CO-.

How aout the direct production of alcohol from a solar nanotube array?
The tube will need a metal based reducer molecule trapped. Can we do complex nanotube chemical synthesizers? Methanol doesn't seem like difficult chemistry.

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