Slashdot Mirror
Gold Nanoparticles Turn Trees Into Streetlights
An anonymous reader writes "Street lights are an important part of our urban infrastructure — they light our way home and make the roads safe at night. But what if we could create natural street lights that don't need electricity to power them? A group of scientists in Taiwan recently discovered that placing gold nanoparticles within the leaves of trees causes them to give off a luminous reddish glow. The idea of using trees to replace street lights is an ingenious one — not only would it save on electricity costs and cut CO2 emissions, but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities."
I'd be chopping down trees everywhere!!!!
Nah, I know the particles are so small it would make the effort a waste of time. That aside, on a serious note, what happens to the "streetlights" when the Fall comes each year?
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The nice thing about street lights, though, is that they don't fall off every autumn.
A group of scientists in Taiwan recently discovered that placing gold nanoparticles within the leaves of trees, causes them to give off a luminous reddish glow.
Even better, a group of US capitalists has discovered that setting fire to the trees produces an even more luminous glow, at no cost to the company, keeping the gold available for executive bonuses.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
I can see at least one problem with this idea...
Necron69
So it appears as though the effect requires an outside energy source to be useful. Nothing to see here, move on.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Yeah because mining gold and refining it and the turning it into nano-particles takes zero energy....
Wrong question.
The question is whether it use less energy than mining, refining, manufacturing natural resources into compete LED based solutions, and then deploying and running them.
The article says:
...A lot of light emitting diode, especially white light emitting diode, uses phosphor powder to stimulate light of different wavelengths. However, phosphor powder is highly toxic and its price is expensive. As a result, Dr. Yen-Hsun Wu had the idea to discover a method that is less toxic to replace phosphor powder. ...
By implanting the gold nanoparticles into the leaves of the Bacopa caroliniana plants, the scientists were able to induce the chlorophyll in the leaves to produce a red emission. Under a high wavelength of ultraviolet light, the gold nanoparticles were able to produce a blue-violet fluorescence to trigger a red emission in the surrounding chlorophyll.
So it sounds like the trees need a "high wavelength of ultraviolet light" to get them to glow. Seems like they are just replacing the phosphor that makes a white LED glow with these gold implanted leaves. But you'd still need a UV light source (which could be an array of UV LED's?).
I'm not sure that this is really an environmental win -- replacing an array of white LED's that last 10 years with an array of UV LED's that point to trees that need their leaves to be impregnated with gold (and replaced annually?) doesn't sound all that environmentally friendly. How bad is the LED phosphor for the environment?
Once again, proof that journalists should just stick to describing the research rather than coming up with groundbreaking applications which, as you'd almost certainly expect, don't work. The nanoparticles don't make the leaves glow "naturally", you have to shine UV light on them. Then they fluoresce red. But if you want to light streets using this technology, can I recommend just coating the UV light with leaves and doing away with the tree (we don't want to waste UV light after all)? In fact, ignore the leaves - just use a fluorophore. Actually, better yet, why not use a fluorophore that doesn't emit red light? How about something more akin to natural light, like yellow? And make it sensitive to blue light rather than UV (because generating UV is harder). And finally, while we're at it, make the light source solid-state.
Congratulations, you've just invented the white LED.
Yes! And the additional health-benefit of inhaling loose, blowing nano-particles - and the subsequent introduction to the pulmonary systems of city-dwellers - is surely the cincher on this!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Valar call prior art!
Ezekiel 23:20
Look pal, I saw that movie. I'm willing to invite reddish glowing leafy overlords, but I put my foot down at glowing leafy fungal overlords.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"...not only would it save on electricity costs and cut CO2 emissions, but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities."
What a stupid thing to say. If they provide enough light to replace street lights, then they contribute just as much to light pollution as the street lights do.
Unless and until we switch over to electric cars en masse, street lights are NOT wasting electricity.
One of the two primary purposes of street lights is to consume the power generated by base-load powerplants that mu$t spin 24/7. Without our vast numbers of street lights, night-time voltages would rise above 130 and start frying your appliances.
Ever wondered why the electric company does not charge money, if you ask them to add a street light to the pole near your house? That's the reason.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Mushrooms are fungi and trees are plants... you may as well try and cross a dog with a sunflower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(biology)
First of all, they're shining high wavelength ultraviolet light at the chlorophyll in the leaves (useless in New England this time of year). This is not an advance in passive lighting but basically a molecular version of putting florescent paint on plants. It is a conversion of projected light. Secondly, the article doesn't state how much UV light is required so there's no way to know whether this is even a reasonable replacement in terms of energy savings (to say nothing of how hard it is to set up gold-leaf trees instead of street lights). That this is even considered a replacement for real streetlights here on Slashdot is a pure flight of fantasy. You might as well talk about how Unicorns will replace chicken as a primary protein source for Americans.
Hmmm... catgirls
you may as well try and cross a dog with a sunflower.
Well, looks like it's possible after all.
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
I think you are missing that half the posts are talking about splicing, as in grafting one part of a plant on to another plant, and the other half are talking about gene splicing.
Several posters have confused the two on purpose.
Now, I need to go finish my recording project where I'm splicing Silver Maple cuttings onto 1/4" CrO2 2-track.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Well, just because it's non reactive does not mean it's OK in the small sacs (alveoli) of the lung. At about 200 micrometers across, the alveoli make a very good trap for non-dissoluble particulates... and particulates do damage. No data on inhaled gold does not make it OK. Putting anything but air in your lungs will have some consequences.
Plus, people being what they are we would get to a point where someone would want to burn the leaves to recover the gold, messing up the whole CO2 bonus.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
So our options for carbon-neutral illumination are:
A - Implant expensive-to-produce gold nano-particles in the leaves of trees
B - Light them on fire
Wow.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!