Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: thedoc on 21/05/2015 12:50:02

Title: Could we harness electricity from chloroplasts?
Post by: thedoc on 21/05/2015 12:50:02

Parikshit asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Could we harness electricity the power of chloroplasts and photo systems 1 & 2?

What do you think?

Title: Re: Could we harness electricity from chloroplasts?
Post by: Pecos_Bill on 23/05/2015 07:46:54

Saw this in "Stanford news"...

Stanford engineers have generated electrical current by tapping into the electron activity in individual algae cells. Photosynthesis excites electrons, which can then be turned into an electrical current using a specially designed gold electrode. This study could be the first step toward carbon-free electricity directly from plants.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/april/electric-current-plants-041310.html

Title: Re: Could we harness electricity from chloroplasts?
Post by: evan_au on 23/05/2015 11:25:49

I volunteer not to be the person inserting gold electrodes into chloroplasts!

Title: Re: Could we harness electricity from chloroplasts?
Post by: Pecos_Bill on 24/05/2015 06:56:59

You can light a LED for several days using a boiled potato.

See it done here...

It comes out of the Nernst equation which is discussed here (but the last time I used the Nernst eq., I had a slide rule)

http://www.chem1.com/acad/webtext/elchem/ec5.html

Title: Re: Could we harness electricity from chloroplasts?
Post by: Don_1 on 03/06/2015 10:42:43

Quote from: Pecos_Bill on 24/05/2015 06:56:59

You can light a LED for several days using a boiled potato.

See it done here...

How many potato batteries would it take to boil a potato?