Photochemical photosynthesis like leaves

Scientists are looking for ways to make microchips capable of turning light into electricity based on plant photosynthesis.

Plants carry out photosynthetic reactions to produce nutrients at a rate of up to 100%. Solar cells also use silicon semiconductors to turn light into electricity, but their efficiency is only 6 to 25 percent.

So Greg Scholes, a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto in Canada, came up with the idea of making a photovoltaic machine like a leaf. They hope the machines will appear in the computer, data storage device, engine, Discovery said.

'Trees are complex machines like a Boeing 777. They have the ability to regulate operations at every step of the second. That's the type of machine we want to make , "Greg said.

Scholes's idea - published in the journal Nature Chemistry - is to make a biochemical circuit capable of turning sunlight into electricity. This chip will become a power source for computers, storage devices and even electronic circuits.

When light-receiving molecules are stimulated by photons of photon grains in light from the sun, they vibrate and transfer energy to molecules and other cells. This phenomenon is like a wave spreading on the pond surface.

"You can use these bio circuits to record and read data on existing computers ," Scholes said.

Some scientists are concerned about the viability of microchips. Chris Bardeen, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, said the biggest challenge would be to capture energy from different wavelengths, not just the visible light.

Alan Aspuru-Guzik, a professor of chemistry at Harvard University in the United States, has studied the mechanism of photosynthesis in plants to make solar panels more efficient in the future. He emphasized that many issues need to be addressed before we see the introduction of photosynthetic microchips like leaves.

'Plants have repair mechanisms that we can not copy. The big technical challenge is to create a material capable of capturing sunlight for 20 years without deterioration, " he said.