Increasing Photocurrents in Biosolar Cells using Microporous Electrodes - A Feasibility Study

太阳能（或光伏能）提供了一种用于大规模能量产生的技术，其避免了现有化石燃料方法的缺陷，在现有化石燃料方法中，煤、石油或天然气在燃烧时产生大量的二氧化碳，这导致气候变化沿着其他不期望的废物（例如，导致酸雨的二氧化硫）。太阳能可以以多种方式捕获（例如使用晶体或非晶硅或砷化镓太阳能电池）。这些太阳能电池可以制造得非常高效（例如用于空间应用）。然而，它们的主要缺点是，它们在货币方面和在用于生产它们的能源方面都是昂贵的。这导致了这种技术的回报时间更长。自然界已经开发出自己的太阳能电池形式的光合作用，这是足够有效的支持整个植物为基础的地球生物圈。光合作用是通过吸收光来进行的，当水被分解为氧、质子和电子时，光产生电势差。这发生在植物叶片中细胞的叶绿体中。在这个提议中，我们将测试提取光合作用类囊体膜的可行性，将它们附着到优化的镀金电极上，并使用所得的太阳能电池作为低成本的太阳能收获器。已知这种太阳能电池能够产生非常小的光电流。因此，该提议的主要目的是增加这些光电流（通过优化电极设计和类囊体生产），使得该技术可以成为可行的商业技术。

Solar energy (or photovoltaic energy) offers a technology for large scale energy generation which avoids the pitfalls of existing fossil fuel methods where coal, oil or gas which, when burnt, generate huge amounts of carbon dioxide which causes climate change along with other undesirable waste products (e.g. sulfur dioxide which causes acid rain). Solar energy can be captured in a number of ways (e.g. using crystalline or amorphous silicon or gallium arsenide solar cells). These solar cells can be fabricated to be very efficient (for instance for use in space applications). However, their major drawback is that they are expensive both in monetary terms and in terms of the energy used to produce them. This leads to longer pay-back times for this type of technology.Nature has developed its own form of solar cells in the form of photosynthesis which is sufficiently effective to support the entire plant-based biosphere of the planet. Photosynthesis operates by light being absorbed to create an electrical potential difference when water is split into oxygen, protons and electrons. This takes place in the chloroplast of cells which are held in plant leaves. Within these chloroplasts, lie thylakoid membranes and these membranes are where photosynthesis takes place.In this proposal, we will test the feasibility of extracting photosynthetic thylakoid membranes, attaching them to optimized gold-coated electrodes and using the resulting solar cells as low cost solar energy harvesters. It is known that such solar cells are capable of generating very small photocurrents. Thus, the principal aim of this proposal is to increase these photocurrents (by optimizing electrode design and thylakoid production) so that the technology can become a viable commercial technology.