Solar power is inefficient. Whenever those plains of panels are laid out, the sunlight they convert into stored energy also degrades their effectiveness. With each day the panels spend smoldering under the sun, they become more unreliable in harvesting the rays. For many new systems, designed for lower cost and flexibility, degradation is a huge issue: In just 60 hours, efficiency can sometimes plummet as much as 90%.
To fix that problem, researchers from MIT turned to some excellent harvesters of sunlight for inspiration: plants. Chemical engineering professor Michael Strano recently had a eureka-moment while reading about plant biology. "I was really impressed by how plant cells have this extremely efficient repair mechanism,” he told MITNews. To mimic this process, his team began work on a set of self-repairing molecules, called phospholipids, that can turn sunlight into energy, and reassemble even after being broken down. By adding or removing a solution, the...
To fix that problem, researchers from MIT turned to some excellent harvesters of sunlight for inspiration: plants. Chemical engineering professor Michael Strano recently had a eureka-moment while reading about plant biology. "I was really impressed by how plant cells have this extremely efficient repair mechanism,” he told MITNews. To mimic this process, his team began work on a set of self-repairing molecules, called phospholipids, that can turn sunlight into energy, and reassemble even after being broken down. By adding or removing a solution, the...
- 9/7/2010
- by Austin Carr
- Fast Company
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