Interesting that it's a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide that it produces. Wonder what the safety implications are.
"the artificial leaf delivers syngas, or synthesis gas, a mixture of hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide. Syngas can be burned directly, or converted into diesel or other hydrocarbon fuels."
Hydrogen and carbon dioxide are the feedstocks for the Fischer-Tropsch process, which produces conventional hydrocarbon fuel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...
In other words, H2 and CO are exactly what you want!
Interesting. How does the CO fertilize the plants?
At the end, you'd just oxidize the CO back to CO2 before release, like a catalytic converter does, or use the CO as a chemical building block to produce hydrocarbons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas
I guess it won't be much different than natural gas from a safety standpoint.
edit: I forgot what it took as input for a sec there..
You don't need a catalytic converter, you can just burn it. But breathing a sigh of relief that we can "safely" dispose of the CO in this way is missing the point rather badly.