Creating ambient light with the renewable chemical energy of living plants is a bold idea. It represents a fundamental change in the way we think about living plants and electrical power for lighting.”

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Nanobionic plants:

Plant nanobionics is a new area of ​​research pioneered by the lab of Michael Strano, Professor of Chemical Engineering together with Sheila Kennedy, Professor of Architecture at MIT.

The goal is to engineer plants to take on many of the functions now performed by electrical devices and other novel features by embedding them with different types of nanoparticles.

They sought to create a light-emitting plant with particles that would absorb light, store some of it, and gradually emit it.

His first generation of light-emitting plants contained nanoparticles that carry luciferase and luciferin, which work together to give fireflies their glow. They could emit dim light for a few hours

“Plants can repair themselves, have their own energy and are already adapted to the outside environment"

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Large scale lighting:

The researchers decided to use a class of materials like phosphor and strontium aluminate similar to a capacitor or “light capacitor” as part of an electrical circuit that can store electricity and release it when needed.

They can be infused into plants through stomata, small pores located on the surface of the leaves. The particles accumulate in a spongy layer called the mesophyll, where they form a thin film. This film can absorb photons from sunlight or from an LED.

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Plant Transformation:

Researchers in Strano’s lab are now working on combining the phosphor light capacitor particles with the luciferase nanoparticles they used in their initial study, in the hope that combining the two technologies will produce plants that can produce a even brighter light, for longer periods of time.

“If living plants could be the starting point for advanced technology, plants could replace our current unsustainable urban electrical lighting grid to the mutual benefit of all plant-dependent species, including people.”

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Future versions of this technology:

The researchers hope to develop a way to paint or spray the nanoparticles on plant leaves, which could make it possible to transform trees and other large plants into light sources.

“Our goal is to do a treatment when the plant is a seedling or mature plant, and to last the life of the plant,” says Strano.