Organic solar cells! Australian researchers are up with their gloves in search for synthetic molecules that will be able to mimic plants’ chlorophyll! Yes, mimic plants’ chlorophyll to form the basis of highly efficient solar cells one day.
Professor Max Crossley’s molecular electronics group at the University of Sydney said,
Nature has evolved this very efficient process, over millions of years, for harvesting light and then converting it into energy… We’re trying to mimic aspects of natural photosynthesis.
Crossley and team have made a synthetic form of chlorophyll that does the job of the dense arrays of chlorophyll molecules in leaves – that are responsible for converting light energy to electrical energy. This electrical energy in turn is then converted to chemical energy.
