Tuesday, March 29, 2011

This Leaf IS MADE OF SCIENCE!!!

Or to be more exact, it's made of silicon, electronics and inexpensive synthetic materials.  What does it do?  Why the same thing a regular leaf does-- splitting water molecules into its component oxygen and hydrogen atoms, generating electricity.  Introducing MIT Professor Daniel Nocera's leaf solar cell:



"Nocera's leaf is stable -- operating continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity in preliminary tests -- and made of widely available, inexpensive materials -- like  silicon, electronics and chemical catalysts. It's also powerful, as much as ten times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf.

With a single gallon of water, Nocera says, the chip could produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing country for an entire day. Provide every house on the planet with an artificial leaf and we could satisfy our 14 terrawatt need with just one gallon of water a day."


FUCKING RAD.  Goes to show-- even in the synthetic world of manufacturing power sources, the best way to do it is to mimic what nature has been researching for billions of years. 


[Wired]

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