These Artificial Leaves Can Absorb Sunlight To Produce Cheaper Medicine

The Eindhoven University of Technology’s experts have come up with artificial leaves that can make use of solar power to produce more affordable medicine. According to the team, these man-made leaves have small reactors resembling those of their real counterparts in nature that can draw energy from the sun to power chemical reactions. So far, these leaves have managed to create two types of medicine.

The two medicines are ascaridole, an antiparasitic drug, and antimalarial artemisinin. The team said that they could increase the scale of the production for a wider array of chemical reactions. A highlight of this technology is that it can keep a stable production despite changes in weather conditions.

It is believed that the tech is now ready for commercial use and upscaling. With the artificial leaves in place, the pharmaceutical industry is expected to get greener in the future. These leaves have LSC (Luminescent Solar Concentrator) in silicon rubber that resemble the veins of leaves in real life. Sunlight will activate the molecules that make up the liquid inside these microchannels and start chemical reactions.

The intensity created by these microchannels and confining light is enough to make reactions occur. In the latest version, the silicon rubber is replaced by plexiglass, a cheaper material suitable for scaling up the production. Plexiglass is also higher in the refractive index so it can keep light confined better. A more notable change is that the scientists can now add more light-sensitive molecules.

According to the team, the reactors in the artificial leaves can be the solution to a huge problem in the pharmaceutical industry, which is to produce sustainably. For now, to produce drugs, companies must use lots of toxic chemicals and energy drawn from fossil fuel.