Tag Archives: sunlight

Revolutionary Nanomaterial Design to Enhance Solar Power Efficiency by Harnessing More Sunlight

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Researchers from Korea University are paving the way for more efficient and cost-effective renewable energy generation by utilizing gold nanospheres designed to capture light across the entire solar spectrum.

Hung Lo et al. introduced plasmonic colloidal superballs as a versatile platform for broadband solar energy harvesting. Image credit: Hung Lo et al., doi: 10.1021/acsami.5c23149.

Scientists are exploring novel materials that efficiently absorb light across the solar spectrum to enhance solar energy harvesting.

Gold and silver nanoparticles have been identified as viable options due to their ease of fabrication and cost-effectiveness, yet current nanoparticles primarily absorb visible wavelengths.

To extend absorption into additional wavelengths, including near-infrared light, researcher Seungwoo Lee and colleagues from Korea University propose the innovative use of self-assembled gold superballs.

These unique structures consist of gold nanoparticles aggregating to form small spherical shapes.

The diameter of the superball was meticulously adjusted to optimize absorption of sunlight’s diverse wavelengths.

The research team first employed computer simulations to refine the design of each superball and predict the overall performance of the superball film.

Simulation outcomes indicated that the superball could absorb over 90% of sunlight’s wavelengths.

Next, the scientists created a film of gold superballs by drying a solution containing these structures on a commercially available thermoelectric generator, a device that converts light energy into electricity.

Films were produced under ambient room conditions—no cleanroom or extreme temperatures needed.

In tests using an LED solar simulator, the average solar absorption rate of the superball-coated thermoelectric generator reached approximately 89%, nearly double that of a conventional thermoelectric generator featuring a single gold nanoparticle membrane (45%).

“Our plasmonic superball offers a straightforward method to harness the entire solar spectrum,” said Dr. Lee.

“Ultimately, this coating technology could significantly reduce barriers for high-efficiency solar and photothermal systems in real-world energy applications.”

The team’s research is published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

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Ro Kyung Hoon et al.. 2026. Plasmonic Supraball for Scalable Broadband Solar Energy Generation. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 18 (1): 2523-2537; doi: 10.1021/acsami.5c23149

Source: www.sci.news

Charming Maniacs in the Wild: Why Does This Adorable Sea Slug Feast on Sunlight?

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Locating one of the ocean’s most charming mollusks requires a diver with exceptionally keen vision. This tiny sea slug, Costa Sierra Crosimae—commonly referred to as a leaf sheep—reaches only a few centimeters in length, approximately the size of a fingernail. Their exquisite camouflage makes them hard to spot.

Their vibrant green bodies blend seamlessly with the seaweed they inhabit, which also happens to be their primary food source. An incredible transformation occurs when they consume it.

Similar to terrestrial plants, seaweed contains small structures called chloroplasts within its cells, which facilitate the process of photosynthesis. These chloroplasts harness sunlight energy to convert carbon dioxide into sugars.

When the leaf sheep feed on seaweed, akin to sheep grazing in a meadow, they can digest the sugars they consume. Alternatively, they can retain the entire chloroplasts without damaging them and incorporate them into their bodies for later use.

The features along the back of the leaf sheep resemble small leaves and are known as cerata. Each ceratum houses an extension of the sea slug’s digestive system, filled with chloroplasts, giving it a textured appearance.

Remarkably, these engulfed chloroplasts continue to photosynthesize, generating additional sugars. Therefore, as long as these sea slugs dwell in shallow tropical waters with abundant sunlight, they have a sustainable food source.

The scientist who first discovered this species in the early 1990s on Japan’s Kuroshima Island named it Black Himae.

Since then, divers have been diligently searching for the specific type of seaweed that these leaf sheep prefer, which is exclusively Avrainvillea green algae. These delightful sea slugs have been located in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Costasiella Nudibranch (Sheep Nudibranch) can be found in the Philippines and Indonesia. – Photo Credit: Getty Images

Like other sea slugs that maintain various seaweed species, leaf sheep lay their eggs in a meticulous helix, allowing them to hatch into larvae that drift through the water. Initially, the young sea slugs possess small shells before eventually discarding them to live shell-free.

The process of adopting chloroplasts from seaweed is known as keratoplasia, which can be observed in many other types of ocean slugs. For example, the green Elysian sea slugs (found along the British and other European coasts, Elysia viridis) utilize Codium seaweed (also known as the dead man’s fingers).

While these slugs lack the leaf-like projections seen in leaf sheep, they possess two wing-like extensions that unfold to maximize sunlight absorption for their self-sustaining food factories.

In this position, these marine slugs resemble drifting leaves. Another species, Elysia marginata, not only captures chloroplasts but also performs astonishing feats. Similar to geckos that shed their tails, these sea slugs can separate their heads from their bodies.

This process takes several hours, and while the detached body can survive for days, it does not regenerate a new head. Meanwhile, the original head roams for a while before growing a new body.

This behavior of severing the head may have evolved as a drastic but effective method for eliminating parasite-infected bodies.

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Research: Thick plant populations move to shade one another and share sunlight

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Typically, plants grow in crowded environments where neighboring plants compete for light while shading each other. The presence of neighboring plants varies through space and time, and plants have developed the ability to detect neighboring plants and grow away from their shade. Although it is generally accepted that these responses help plants increase their individual light exposure, it is not clear how plants find solutions that are beneficial for them as a whole. In a new study, physicists from Tel Aviv University and elsewhere focus on the spontaneous self-organized pattern formation of sunflower flocks mediated by shade avoidance. Their analysis reveals that circumnavigation (the innate movement of plants) results in random perturbations that follow a restricted random walk.

Circling is widespread in plant systems and is commonly associated with exploratory behavior, but its role is difficult to quantitatively understand. otherswere the first to report their role in promoting optimal growth patterns in dense plant populations that shade each other. Image courtesy of Manuel H.

“Previous studies have shown that when sunflowers are planted close together in a field and shade each other, they will grow in a zigzag pattern, one forward and one backward, to avoid shading each other,” said Professor Yasmin Meros of Tel Aviv University.

“That way the plants can grow side by side, maximizing the light they receive from the sun and maximizing photosynthesis overall.”

“In fact, plants know how to distinguish between the shadow of a building and the green shadow of their leaves.”

“When they sense the shadow of a building, they usually don't change their growth direction because they know it won't have any effect.”

“But when a plant senses shadow, it grows away from the shadow.”

In this study, the researchers investigated the question of how sunflowers “know” how to grow optimally (i.e. to capture the most sunlight collectively) and analysed the growth dynamics of sunflowers in the lab that exhibit a zigzag pattern.

Meros and his colleagues grew sunflowers in high-density environments, photographing them every few minutes as they grew, and then stitched together the images to create a time-lapse video.

The researchers followed the movements of each sunflower and observed the blossoms dancing en masse.

According to the authors, Darwin was the first to recognise that all plants grow by exhibiting a kind of cyclical movement (circumlocution), and that both stems and roots exhibit this behaviour.

But until now, apart from a few examples such as vines that grow in large circular motions searching for something to grab hold of, it hasn't been clear whether this is an artefact or an important feature of growth. Why would a plant expend energy growing in a random direction?

“As part of our research, we carried out a physical analysis to capture the behaviour of each sunflower in the colony and found that they dance to find the optimal angle to avoid blocking the sunlight of their neighbours,” Professor Meros said.

“We statistically quantified this movement and showed through computer simulations that these random movements are used collectively to minimize the amount of shadowing.”

“We were also very surprised to see that the distribution of sunflower stride lengths was so wide, spanning three orders of magnitude, from nearly zero displacement to moving two centimetres in either direction every few minutes.”

“Sunflower plants take advantage of the fact that they can use both small, slow steps and large, fast steps to find the optimal arrangement for their population,” Professor Meros said.

“That means that if the steps are narrow or wide, the arrangement will increase mutual shading and reduce photosynthesis.”

“It's like a crowded dance party, where people dance around to get more space. If you move too much, you get in the way of the other dancers, but if you move too little, it doesn't solve the crowding problem, because one corner of the square will be very crowded and the other side will be empty.”

“Sunflowers also exhibit similar communication dynamics: a combination of response to the shade of neighboring plants and random movement without regard to external stimuli.”

of result Published in the journal Physical Review X.

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Chantal Nguyen others2024. Noisy turning movements promote self-organized shade avoidance in sunflowers. Physical Review X 14 (3): 031027; doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.14.031027

Source: www.sci.news