Plugging In Molecular Wires big advance in photosynthesis based Solar Cells? Japanese researchers have now developed a new process to capture light energy with nearly equal efficiency as photosynthesis, aprocess with almost a 100% efficiency. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, they “plug” a molecular “wire” directly into a biological photosynthetic system to efficiently conduct the free electrons to a gold electrode. The new approach taken by the Japanese researchers cleverly connects photosystem I (PSI) from the blue-green algae Thermosynechococcus elongatus with a synthetic apparatus. Electrons released by irradiation of PSI and transmitted along the wire are very efficiently transmitted to the gold electrode by the viologen group.
It may be possible to use this new strategy to integrate other biocomponents into synthetic systems.
More Details at Science Daily
