Nanoparticles can Boost Solar Energy Capture of Algae
Technological advances such as using nanoparticles to boost solar energy capture by plants will take our technology to a new level of applications, such as increasing crop yields or algae biofuel production.
Nanoparticles could increase the amount of solar energy captured by plants by as much as 30%. That is the conclusion of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who have shown that plants with semiconducting carbon nanotubes in their leaves can better convert energy from sunlight into electrical current.
The team believes that the discovery could be exploited in a new field dubbed plant “nanobionics”, whereby nanoparticles could enhance natural functions in ordinary plants and also be used to create artificial plant-like systems that grow and repair themselves using sunlight and water. Potential applications include biochemical detectors for monitoring pollutants in the environment and perhaps even new technologies that would help increase crop yields.
“Plants provide us with food and fuel, and even the oxygen we breathe, but they have been little used in technology applications until now,” says team member Juan Pablo Giraldo. “We are talking about a new field at the interface between nanotechnology and plant biology, which we have called plant nanobionics.”
