Young girl creates artificial leaf capable of generating oxygen [video]

One of the biggest challenges for long-term space exploration missions is oxygen production and storage. But a project developed by Julian Melchiorri, a student at the Royal College of Art (UK), is about to open new horizons to science. The fact is that the young researcher developed the first organic leaf capable of performing one of the most remarkable functions that vegetables naturally perform: oxygen production.

By absorbing light, carbon dioxide and water, the leaf produces O2 - an environment formed by artificial plantations in full space can thus generate and enrich oxygen. “I extracted chloroplasts from plant cells and placed them inside silk proteins. As a result, I got a leaf that lives and breathes like a natural leaf, ”explains Melchiorri. It roughly means that the invention is capable of simulating part of the photosynthesis process.

The use of leaves on terrestrial soil is also one of the aims pursued by the inventor. Walls of buildings, for example, can be lined with sheets to provide their residents with oxygen enriched. In space missions, planting can also be done: natural plants do not flourish properly when subjected to zero gravity - the absence of G force does not compromise the development of the artificial leaf created.