Will glowing trees replace street lamps in the near future? Can glowing plants be used as a source of light?
These questions have occupied a group of scientists who have come up with an ingenious idea how to cut electricity costs and reduce light pollution.
Walking down the street a late evening you might actually find yourself surrounded by amazingly beautiful glowing trees and pants, instead of ordinary street lamps.
Researchers say that after proper optimization, threes and plants can be used to construct biological street lightning and serve as an efficient energy source.
A group of researchers in Taiwan led by Yen Hsun Su and colleagues at Academia Sinica in Taipei and the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan have successfully synthesized gold nanoparticles and implemented them into leaves of Bacopa caroliniana plant to induce bioluminescence in them.
This process turned the leaves into bio-light-emitting diodes.
Nanoparticles are particles with a diameter of about 10 nanometers ( a nanometer is a billionth of a meter).
Bacopa caroliania is a perennial aquatic or semi-aquatic herb commonly used as aquarium plant." The color of the leaves varies in proportion to the amount of light, turning bronze to almost red when exposed to high light levels."
"The green pigment in leaves, chlorophyll, is bioluminescent when exposed to high wavelength (400 nanometers (nm)) ultra violet excitation, but the wavelength is much shorter for the photoluminescence of gold nanoparticles, and they emit light at 400 nm.
The light is localized at a nanoscale and the nanoparticles made by the Taiwan team suppresses emission blinking, which is a problem already known in gold nanoparticles. Using their sea-urchin-shaped nanoparticles (dubbed nano-sea-urchins or NSUs), Su was able to excite chlorophyll in the leaves to emit red light."
more
Fantastic Biological Street Lighting - Using Glowing Plants And Trees As An Energy Source - MessageToEagle.com
These questions have occupied a group of scientists who have come up with an ingenious idea how to cut electricity costs and reduce light pollution.
Walking down the street a late evening you might actually find yourself surrounded by amazingly beautiful glowing trees and pants, instead of ordinary street lamps.
Researchers say that after proper optimization, threes and plants can be used to construct biological street lightning and serve as an efficient energy source.
A group of researchers in Taiwan led by Yen Hsun Su and colleagues at Academia Sinica in Taipei and the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan have successfully synthesized gold nanoparticles and implemented them into leaves of Bacopa caroliniana plant to induce bioluminescence in them.
This process turned the leaves into bio-light-emitting diodes.
Nanoparticles are particles with a diameter of about 10 nanometers ( a nanometer is a billionth of a meter).
Bacopa caroliania is a perennial aquatic or semi-aquatic herb commonly used as aquarium plant." The color of the leaves varies in proportion to the amount of light, turning bronze to almost red when exposed to high light levels."
"The green pigment in leaves, chlorophyll, is bioluminescent when exposed to high wavelength (400 nanometers (nm)) ultra violet excitation, but the wavelength is much shorter for the photoluminescence of gold nanoparticles, and they emit light at 400 nm.
The light is localized at a nanoscale and the nanoparticles made by the Taiwan team suppresses emission blinking, which is a problem already known in gold nanoparticles. Using their sea-urchin-shaped nanoparticles (dubbed nano-sea-urchins or NSUs), Su was able to excite chlorophyll in the leaves to emit red light."
more
Fantastic Biological Street Lighting - Using Glowing Plants And Trees As An Energy Source - MessageToEagle.com
