Spinach based solar cell prototype (via Vanderbilt School of Engineering)
Engineering students from the Vanderbilt School of Engineering have recently received a $90,000 US grant from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to continue development of a hybrid bio-solar panel that makes use of a protein found in spinach. Their solar-panel design makes use of photosynthetic proteins extracted from spinach as an alternative to silicon-based photovoltaic cells to produce electricity. The solar panel is comprised of 24 centimeter-sized cells deposited on a non-biological substrate that use PSI (Photosystem I) instead of silicon as the energy harvesting/conversion (photosynthesis) medium, which is coupled together with thin copper strips that also act as an electrical conduit. The next phase is to construct a 6' (1.8 meter) square panel consisting of 1,000 of the square centimeter cells (0.39" square).
Full panel concept (via Vanderbilt School of Engineering)
The energy produced by this method is minimal at best. The tech could be used to power less demanding remote-based sensors, but it doesn’t rival the power produced by today's photovoltaic cells. The up-side is that the team hopes the future revisions would be both energy efficient as well as easier and cheaper to produce over silicon-based panels. As a result of winning the EPA-sponsored People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) contest, where college students design projects for a sustainable future, the team was able to walk away with their sizable sum for further development of their spinach-powered solar panel.
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