Virus M13 - Scientists Go The Biology Way To Harness More Solar Power
All of us know about viruses and the effects it can bring along. But one can never get to know everything about these microscopic things. We do know they can cause diseases in other beings, but at the same time they are used effectively in virotherapy to treat other diseases. Now some  researchers have identified another field of use of viruses: solar power generation.
We are quite familiar with the use of solar cells to harness solar power and convert it to current. Some researchers from MIT had earlier identified that the efficiency of solar cell can be improved by the use of carbon nanotubes. But it was not that easy to implement. The nano tubes kept joining together and that had a direct effect on their effectiveness. But the idea was too good to be dumped so researchers began thinking of ways to keep the tubes away from each other and prevent shorting. Graduate students Xiangnan Dang and Hyunjung Yi came up with the best solution: Virus!
#-Link-Snipped-#A bacteriophage, Virus M13 was genetically developed and used. The addition of virus enhanced structures caused the efficiency to scale up to 10.6 percent from the previous existing 8 percent. That was a huge achievement. Use of nanotubes in solar power generation has been attempted in the past but only with marginal increase of efficiency. The huge increase in efficiency when virus is added makes this attempt really successful.
The Process:
Steps in the working of a solar cell: first, the sun’s rays fall on the active material, it causes some electrons to be freed from their atoms and they start moving towards the collector and in the process they charge the battery. Then the electrons are returned to the atoms and the process continues as long as the sunlight is there. The virus and the nano tubes together make an effort to improve the second step. They do so by creating a direct route for the electrons when coming back to the material.
Virus’ involvement: it is entrusted with two functions during the last step i.e., bring back the electrons to the atoms. As said earlier it must hold the tube in position and avoid contact between adjacent tubes. Viruses accomplish this by using short proteins called Polypeptides. These proteins help the virus hold the tube in place and a single virus can hold 10 such tubes. Also, the solar cells used were dye-sensitized solar cells, where the active material is titanium dioxide. The virus was made to produce the TiO2 over each tube. We can make the same virus do both these functions by adjusting the acidity of the environment.
It is easy to start the production of the virus incorporated solar cells because there is only one simple step to be added in the production process so adaption to the existing production facilities should not be a problem.
Image Credit: #-Link-Snipped-#
We are quite familiar with the use of solar cells to harness solar power and convert it to current. Some researchers from MIT had earlier identified that the efficiency of solar cell can be improved by the use of carbon nanotubes. But it was not that easy to implement. The nano tubes kept joining together and that had a direct effect on their effectiveness. But the idea was too good to be dumped so researchers began thinking of ways to keep the tubes away from each other and prevent shorting. Graduate students Xiangnan Dang and Hyunjung Yi came up with the best solution: Virus!
#-Link-Snipped-#A bacteriophage, Virus M13 was genetically developed and used. The addition of virus enhanced structures caused the efficiency to scale up to 10.6 percent from the previous existing 8 percent. That was a huge achievement. Use of nanotubes in solar power generation has been attempted in the past but only with marginal increase of efficiency. The huge increase in efficiency when virus is added makes this attempt really successful.
The Process:
Steps in the working of a solar cell: first, the sun’s rays fall on the active material, it causes some electrons to be freed from their atoms and they start moving towards the collector and in the process they charge the battery. Then the electrons are returned to the atoms and the process continues as long as the sunlight is there. The virus and the nano tubes together make an effort to improve the second step. They do so by creating a direct route for the electrons when coming back to the material.
Virus’ involvement: it is entrusted with two functions during the last step i.e., bring back the electrons to the atoms. As said earlier it must hold the tube in position and avoid contact between adjacent tubes. Viruses accomplish this by using short proteins called Polypeptides. These proteins help the virus hold the tube in place and a single virus can hold 10 such tubes. Also, the solar cells used were dye-sensitized solar cells, where the active material is titanium dioxide. The virus was made to produce the TiO2 over each tube. We can make the same virus do both these functions by adjusting the acidity of the environment.
It is easy to start the production of the virus incorporated solar cells because there is only one simple step to be added in the production process so adaption to the existing production facilities should not be a problem.
Image Credit: #-Link-Snipped-#
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