Artificial photosynthesis energy conversion efficiency (due to photosynthesis' own low efficiency in converting sunlight to biomass), the cost of harvesting and transporting the fuel, and conflicts due to the increasing need of land mass for food production. The purpose of artificial photosynthesis is to produce a fuel from sunlight that can be stored conveniently and used when sunlight is not available, by using direct processes, that is, to produce a solar fuel. With the development of catalysts able to reproduce the major parts of photosynthesis, water and sunlight would ultimately be the only needed sources for clean energy production. The only by-product
Photosynthesis the net photosynthetic rates ranged from 10 to 13 μmol CO·m·s, with the conclusion that all terrestrial plants having the same photosynthetic capacities that were light saturated at less than 50% of sunlight. Later in 1958-1963 at Cornell University, field grown maize was reported to have much greater leaf photosynthetic rates of 40 μmol CO·m·s and was not saturated at near full sunlight. This higher rate in maize was almost double those observed in other species such as wheat and soybean, indicating that large differences in photosynthesis exist among higher plants. At the University of Arizona, detailed gas exchange research