NREL’s Multi-Junction Solar Cells Teach Scientists How to Turn Plants into Powerhouses

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

May 12, 2011

Plants can overcome their evolutionary legacies to become much better at using biological photosynthesis to produce energy, the kind of energy that can power vehicles in the near future, an all-star collection of biologists, physicists, photochemists, and solar scientists has found.

A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) workshop that drew a prestigious collection of 18 scientists to compare the efficiency of plants and photovoltaic solar cells led to an important and provocative scholarly article in today’s issue of the journal Science. Two of the scientists are from DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Arthur J. Nozik and Maria Ghirardi,

Titled“Comparing Photosynthetic and Photovoltaic Efficiencies and Recognizing the Potential for Improvement,” the article combines lessons learned from evolutionary photobiology and modern solar cells to make the case for a potentially huge boost in the efficiency of the solar production of biofuels.

The multi-junction tandem solar cell initially developed at NREL proved to be an important strategy to understand how to boost the efficiency of corn, grasses, algae, and other plants that use photosynthesis to produce stored solar energy.

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