In a breakthrough,
scientists have turned a rose into a supercapacitor that may lead to systems
harvesting energy from ‘electronic plants' to power sensors. Researchers showed
that they had enabled roses to absorb a conducting polymer solution. Conducting
hydrogel was formed in the rose's stem in the form of wires. With an electrode
at each end and a gate in the middle, a fully functional transistor was created.
“We have been able to charge the rose
repeatedly, for hundreds of times without any loss on the performance of the
device. The levels of energy storage we have achieved are of the same order of
magnitude as those in supercapacitors,” said Eleni Stavrinidou, Assistant
Professor at the Laboratory Pof Organic Electronics from Linkoping University
in Sweden. “The plant can, without any form of optimisation of the system,
potentially power our ion pump, for example, and various types of sensors,”
said Stavrinidou. Researchers developed a material that polymerises inside the
rose without any external trigger.
The innate
fluid that flows inside the rose contributes to creating long, conducting
threads, not only in the stem but also throughout the plant, out into the
leaves and petals. “This research is in a very early stage, and what the future
will bring is an open question,” said Stavrinidou. “A few years ago, we
demonstrated that it is possible to create electronic plants, ‘power plants',
but we have now shown that the research has practical applications,” said
Magnus Berggren, Head of the Laboratory of Organic Electronics.
“We have not
only shown that energy storage is possible, but also that we can deliver
systems with excellent performance,” said Berggren. Some examples are
autonomous energy systems, the possibility of harvesting energy from plants to
power sensors and various types of switches, and the possibility of creating
fuel cells inside plants. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences. -
Source: DNA-1st March,2017
