Photovoltaic Cell from Plant Proteins

TheSync writes "FuturePundit has a story about work at MIT to develop a photovoltaic cell from spinach chloroplast proteins to generate electricity. These cells convert 12% of the light energy into electricity, and researchers hope to reach 20% efficiency, better than commercial silicon solar cells."

Comments

Only 20%?

[Kevin Burtch]

What about this?

And it's nothing compared to this!

The reported results are not for spinach

[manganese4]

I just read the article in Nano letters. The reported 12% efficiency was not for Spinach proteins. The authors simply demonstrate that Spinahc PSI proteins can be interated into a working device but report no statement of efficiency.

Instead the authors extracted the distinctly different photosynthetic proteins from Rb. sphaeroides. Also, it is not clear if the author's efficiency calculation take into account the inherent loss of energy due to using excitation energy higher than the energy of the charge separated state of the RC. Or if they are simply comparing photons in and number of electrons out.

Oxidation issues

[cagle_.25]

From the article ...

My take on chlorophyll-photovoltaic cells is that they will be feasible some day but it is hard to say when. Their potential advantage over more conventional biomass approaches to energy is that thay would not need to be tended to the way plants in fields or in vats must be. Their potential advantage over more conventional silicon photovoltaic cells is that they may some day be much cheaper to make. But one question that arises is whether the proteins in the chloroplasts can be treated to be made stable for long periods of time.

This is a non-trivial concern. The electron generation can probably occur by multiple pathways, only some of which are reversible. As a result, the proteins become oxidized over time, and lose potency. Some of the links in the article hinted at this problem.

That's misleading

[durandual]

to say that 20% efficient is better than silicon solar cells is simply misleading... how many people will think that that means it's more efficient than solar cells thinking that silicon is the most efficient. For example the galium arsenide solar cells are anywhere from 22-27% efficient.

What you probably should have said wast that it was more efficient than some types of solar cells. The batch of 27% efficiency solar cells that my group just rejected are a heck of a lot more efficient than spinach ever will be at 20%... be careful you accurately present comparison information in a none misleading method. Thanks!