Micro and Nano Design and Fabrication of a Novel Artificial Photosynthesis Device

Artificial photosynthesis is a new method to generate sustainable energy. In order to constrain reaction solution in a solid state structure and increase the reaction efficiency, we designed a novel artificial photosynthesis device with porous chitosan scaffold with interconnected micro-channels. We built 3D interconnected chitosan channels with a home-made heterogeneous 3D rapid prototyping machine, and we used lyophilization method to generate the nano pores inside the chitosan scaffold. Chitosan gel in acetic acid can form different viscosities by different chitosan’s molecular weight and the different concentrations of both chitosan and the acetic acid, so we found a proper material recipe to construct 3D scaffold by our own rapid prototyping machine. Optional support material sodium bicarbonate is used in printing 3D scaffold for holding the printed structure permanently, and the result shows that this method can make the scaffold stronger and harmless to further processes such as adding light reaction units and dark reaction solution into the device.