Biophotovoltaics. It’s the intersection of life and electronics. Of organic matter and renewable energy production. Of one clean, natural process happily married to another.
Interest peaked? Good. Keep reading.
The beauty of biophotovoltaics
The term is fairly new to solar industry circles. It’s used mostly to describe a device that can generate solar electricity through photosynthesis.
You may remember a certain “Juicing Jellyfish for Solar Power” idea buzzing around the web over a year ago. Or Daniel Nocera’s artificial leaf, which uses solar to split hydrogen and oxygen for use in a fuel cell.
As farfetched as those concepts seemed at the time, biophotovoltaic breakthroughs keep coming, this time in the form of grass clippings that may someday power whole villages.
How? MIT researcher Andreas Mershin believes that powering up rural villages–often left in the dark without an electrical grid–could be done simply and cheaply by blending custom chemicals with green plant matter and painting it on a rooftop.
Granted, the current efficiency of his solar cell is miniscule. At just 0.1% efficient, it has a long way to go in development, though Mershin’s cell has already quadrupled the performance of earlier biophotovoltaic systems.
His projection for a deliverable paint-chemical-plant mixture? Just a few years.
Do you think it’s feasible?
Let me know in the comments, and check out Mershin’s video for more information.
Photo: MIT News
Harnessing Solar Power with Grass Clippings?
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