How mushrooms can save the world, well almost

Mushroom Man | Leslie Iwerks from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Paul Stamets believes we have entered into the 6th major extinction on our planet. He presents mushrooms as a solution to this problem, including cleaning polluted soil, creating new insecticides, treating smallpox and maybe even the flu.
Starring: Paul Stamets
Writer-Director: Leslie Iwerks
Executive Producers: Daryl Hannah & Leslie Iwerks
Producer: Michael E. Tang
Director of Photography: Suki Medencevic

Maybe it is just my perception bias, but this headline sounded like they were using just sunlight as catlyst. Further reading showed that was not quite the case. Nanoarchitectonics Researcher Designs Photocatalyst for Mass Production of Hydrogen

High expectations have been placed on strontium titanate (SrTiO3) as a photocatalyst. However, this compound cannot absorb visible light, which occupies a large part of the spectrum of sunlight. Therefore, we attempted to expand its visible light absorption by doping with transition metals such as Cr, etc. In recent years, much research has been done on co-doping of transition metal elements and other elements with the aim of stabilizing the oxidation number (valence) of the transition elements, but no clear guidelines exist for selection of the dopant.
In this research, we studied the optimum combination of dopants based on the electronic structures when Cr and various other elements are co-doped utilizing computational science. As a result, we predicted that the highest activity would occur when La, which has the capacity to form conduction electrons in SrTiO3, is co-doped with Cr. We also confirmed experimentally that this material exhibits high efficiency in evolution of hydrogen from water under visible light irradiation, thus demonstrating the validity of the theory.
As hydrogen is expected to be an environment-friendly energy source, development of a technology that enables efficient production of hydrogen is awaited. This research demonstrated the effectiveness of theoretical design in the development of photocatalysts, thereby opening a new road toward the development of materials with higher activity. This approach is expected to make an important contribution to solving environmental and energy problems.
A portion of these research results were obtained as part of the research theme “Development of highly active photocatalysts from ubiquitous elements”

SrTiO3 is a promising photocatalyst for the production of hydrogen from water splitting under solar light. Cr doping is an effective treatment for adjusting its absorption edge to the visible-light range, although the performance of Cr-doped SrTiO3 is strongly affected by the oxidation number of the Cr ions. In this study, we theoretically predict that elevating the Fermi level, i.e., n-type carrier doping in SrTiO3, can stabilize the desirable oxidation number of chromium (Cr3+), contributing to a higher activity for H2 evolution.

Cr is chromium and Strontium titanate is an oxide of strontium and titanium. In terms of costs and availability they are better than platinum, but are they so plentiful that they could be called, “ubiquitous”. Though the doping trick with Cr is definitely impressive and when combined strontium titanate, might well come in handy as a catalyst.

Layers in a Crater in Nilosyrtis 1600×1200 – Credit:NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
“This impact crater in the Nilosyrtis region of Mars contains numerous layers exposed along its floor. These layers formed long after the impact event and are likely deposits of dust and ice.” There are more custom sized images at this link. I cleaned this one up and saturated the colors a little.