Solar panels work great in full sunlight conditions, but many regions have little sunlight on any given day, meaning there is less energy generated than needed. Now Tufts researchers have discovered that a particular type of jewel orchid, which thrives in low-light conditions, might offer a key to solving this problem.
School of Engineering faculty members Giulia Guidetti and Fiorenzo Omenetto report in a new paper that the leaves of the Macodes petola jewel orchid are made up of dome-like cells that allow them to capture more than three times as much light as ordinary plant "skin" cells, and share that light with neighboring cells, acting essentially as an optical network. That networking process maximizes the light that the plant can use to convert sunlight to chemical energy, essential for its functioning.
The researchers copied those cell patterns using a silk-protein-based biomaterial, mimicking the light harvesting and optical networking capabilities of the orchid, and suggest that solar panels made of such a material "would go beyond the flexible solar cells that exist today," says Omenetto, Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering and director of Silklab at Tufts.
Now Guidetti, a research assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Omenetto have received a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to further investigate the plant light harvesting systems and the possibility of applying those systems' optical networks to advance solar energy efficiency.
Read more at now.tufts.edu