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Plant Electricity Generator?!
OK. this is gonna sound very crazy. i remember learning this thing about photosynthesis. there are electron acceptors and donors. during photosynthesis, the electrons are passed on and on. it's like redox reaction. or perhaps it is redox reaction. anyway i came up with a crazy idea of generating electricity from plants. there just might not be enough electrons to do the "work" (to get at least 5V? impossible.). batteries have the + and - terminal. plants have electron acceptors and donors. crazy, eh? what do y'all think?
Comments
12 years ago
I think it's an idea worth pursuing, and so do several other people:
The photosynthetic solar panel is transparent with a colored liquid that acts as a conducting agent when solar light penetrates the transparent and flexible plastic surface hitting the artificial chlorophyll (stimulating the molecules to agitate) and thereby causing an electrical current.
Or
Dye Solar Cells (DSC) technology has been described as ‘artificial photosynthesis’ using an electrolyte, a layer of titanium (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste) and ruthenium dye sandwiched between glass.
Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titanium to become an electric current many times stronger than that found in natural photosynthesis in plants. ]
Or
Leading experts in photosynthesis research will discuss tomorrow how understanding the fundamental processes that plants use to turn light into energy is a key way of securing cheap, emission-free energy in the future.
Reply 12 years ago
thanks for your input Kiteman =]
12 years ago
Yes, redox. I was thinking the same thing.......
12 years ago
Well photosynthesis generates energy to make simple sugars etc. out of carbon dioxide and water, alogn with nutrients etc. there's probably a way to use the process to make electricity, using bacterial coloies of photosynthesising bacteria, possibly even manufactured for the process, much like the way insulin can be produced with bacteria... however finding out how to harness the power from it and also whether it's actually more efficient than solar cells is the big problem, if someone finds out how the efficiency thing wouldn't be hard to find out, you could use massive plates that work like leaves to do it...