Energy consumption is increasing every year, and currently, about 81% of world energy supply is from fossil fuels. Despite the economic slowdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, the global average annual carbon dioxide concentration has set to rise again during the 2021, reaching a new record. The energy from the Sun on the Earth’s surface in less than two hours matches the current global energy consumption in a year. If we were able to properly use it, we would largely satisfy the entire energy demand of the humankind and decrease the pollution created by the combustion of fossil fuels. Yet, solar light is diffuse and intermittent, suggesting that a cost-effective and efficient way to store its energy it is necessary. A way to overcome these issues is the production of simple fuels (e.g. H2, CH3OH, C2H5OH), which can efficiently store energy in their chemical bonds. An environmental-friendly way to produce them is to use incident solar photon energy to drive energetically uphill reactions, such as the water splitting and the reduction of CO2. The natural global demand of the incident solar energy is 5000 times less than the incident solar light. Therefore, harvesting such enormous excess to produce fuels from water and CO2 offers an extraordinary opportunity to “take three pigeons with the same stone”, namely a) to reduce CO2 pollution, b) to address the energy supply and storage, and c) to wean the humankind off the fossil fuels dependence, in agreement with the United Nations sustainable development goals n° 7 and n° 13.The final objectives of LuSH Art are to develop new hybrid nano heterostructures and to develop new luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) for solar fuels production by taking inspiration from the energy migration approach that occurs in a natural leaf.
