Living Ink Solar Panels Could Power Small Devices

Cyanobacteria have been around for billions of

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years. They manufacture their own food through photosynthesis, absorbing solar light and turning it into energy. Much like plants, they release oxygen in the process, and their presence may have changed our atmosphere so much that bigger creatures could eventually breathe and thrive on Earth. Now, they’re being used to create tiny bio solar panels.

These tiny creatures have been used to create a living ink that can be printed on paper and work as bio-solar panels. Researchers at Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge and Central Saint Martins used an inkjet printer to draw precise patterns onto electrically conductive carbon nanotubes, which were also printed on the same surface.

Not only did the resilient bacteria survive the printing process, but produced a small amount of electricity that the team harvested over a period of 100 hours through photosynthesis.

This may seem to be a relatively short lifespan compared to the solar panels we install on our roofs, but “paper-based BPVs [microbial biophotoltaics] are not meant to replace conventional solar cell technology for large-scale power production,” Dr. Andrea Fantuzzi, co-author of the study (published in Nature) from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, said in a statement.

https://futurism.com/solar-panels-power-small-devices/