SOLAR PANELS FROM GRASS

Harnessing nature’s solar cells; Photovoltaic panels made from plant material could become a cheap, easy alternative to traditional solar cells.
David L. Chandler, February 3, 2012 (MIT News)

"Within a few years, people in remote villages in the developing world may be able to make their own solar panels, at low cost, using otherwise worthless agricultural waste as their raw material…[according to] MIT researcher Andreas Mershin…he work is an extension of a project begun eight years ago by Shuguang Zhang, a principal research scientist and associate director at MIT’s Center for Biomedical Engineering…

"…Zhang was able to enlist a complex of molecules known as photosystem-I (PS-I), the tiny structures within plant cells that carry out photosynthesis. Zhang and colleagues derived the PS-I from plants, stabilized it chemically and formed a layer on a glass substrate that could — like a conventional photovoltaic cell — produce an electric current when exposed to light."



"But… it required expensive chemicals and sophisticated lab equipment…[and the] solar cell was weak…Mershin says the process has been simplified to the point that virtually any lab could replicate it…[and the] efficiency is 10,000 times greater than in the previous version — although…it still needs to improve another tenfold or so to become useful…

"…Mershin thinks that because he and his colleagues have now lowered the barrier to entry for further work on these materials, progress toward improving their efficiency should be rapid…Because the system is so cheap and simple, he hopes this will become…low-tech electricity to people who have never been thought of as consumers…He hopes [that within a few years] the instructions…[a] sheet of cartoon instructions…[and the] only ingredient to be purchased would be [inexpensive] chemicals to stabilize the PS-I molecules…"