Energy from photosystem II: manganese water oxidation catalysts

World demand for energy is rapidly increasing and is projected to more than double by the year 2050. Finding sufficient supplies of clean energy for the future is one of the major scientific challenges of today. Sunlight accounts for the largest energy input into the earth s surface, providing more energy in one hour than all of the energy consumed by the entire planet in one year. Over more than 2 billion years, plants, algae and cyanobacteria have evolved the most efficient methods to utilize solar energy, by catalyzing the light-driven splitting of water into molecular oxygen, protons and electrons