41Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide
burning of cars and trucks and thus making these into essentially zero-
emissions vehicles [162]. Articial leaves should be developed, able to collect
energy in the same way as a natural leaf would. This trend represents a great
challenge for the use of renewable energy and a sustainable development.
In order to avoid the problem of intermittency in solar energy, it is neces-
sary to design systems that capture CO
2
directly, and then convert CO
2
into
liquid solar fuels that are easy to be stored. An advantageous condition for
rendering articial leaves over natural leaves is that articial leaves operate
at a higher solar energy-to-chemical fuel conversion efciency, and provide
directly fuels, which can be ...