Experts have developed a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions and that might be a game changing breakthrough in the field of photosynthesis.

The newly discovered system has the capacity to convert the carbon dioxide into chemical products such as pharmaceutical drugs, biodegradable plastics and liquid fuels.

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A hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria imitating the natural photosynthetic process has been developed by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.

The artificial photosynthetic system combines carbon dioxide and water and turns it into acetate, which is the common building block for biosynthesis.

"We believe our system is a revolutionary leap forward in the field of artificial photosynthesis. Our system has the potential to fundamentally change the chemical and oil industry in that we can produce chemicals and fuels in a totally renewable way, rather than extracting them from deep below the ground," said Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and one of the leaders of this study.

Researcher believe this artificial photosynthetic technique will solve the problem of storing captured carbon dioxide and puting this greenhouse gas to good use.

Yang and his research group made use of an "artificial forest" of nanowire heterostructures consisting of silicon and titanium oxide nanowires.

The success of the artificial photosynthesis system is made possible by adopting nanowire/bacteria hybrid technology.

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