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That’s the goal anyway!

The artificial leaves don’t work without having a dye in them which can absorb the energy from sunlight (very similar to the role chlorophyll plays in plants – that’s what causes them to be green). At the moment I’m making lots different dyes to see which one works best. All of my dyes contain platinum – a metal rarer and more expensive than gold! They all tend to be quite brightly coloured too:

You know how white clothes glow under ultraviolet light? That process is called ‘fluorescence’ and we use that very same effect to test whether the dyes are doing what we want them to. This means that they too glow really bright and it’s very exciting (for me anyway…) when they do as it means all your hard work has paid off!

I have to start my day with a large cup of coffee to get the brain going again, and I try not to spend too long on Facebook! I usually have to start by looking over any tests that were run overnight to see if the things I made the day before are what I thought they’d be. This sounds dull, but it can be quite good fun as it’s all about solving puzzles which is really satisfying when you get the right answer.

Most of my day I spend in the lab (with the radio on) making new and interesting chemicals. This is the best part of the job as you get to make things that have never ever existed before! This makes me happy:

Every now and then I have to test the dyes I’ve made to work out how they’re going to perform in the artificial leaves. We use lasers to do this (what’s not to like about lasers?!):

When all is done, one of the things I like to do to relax is shoot arrows at things!