As an fervent environmentalist, I am always looking for new technological developments which is beneficial to the mankind to make this earth more greener. Here is one such news item, I wish to share with you..

The earth absorbs approx 89 petawatts (PW 1 petawatt = 1 x 10¹⁵watt) of energy from the Sun per year, while the world consumes about 0.016 petawatts of energy per year.  As such, solar energy offers the prospect of a clean and reliable energy source with the prospect of meeting the energy demands of the world quite easily.  However, harnessing this powerful source has been uneven over the past six decades. Today, the materials in most of today's residential rooftop solar panels can store energy extracted from the sun for only a few microseconds at a time, so we face problems when sunlight is not available

But, the scientists at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed this technology which can store solar energy for many weeks.

The new design is inspired by the way that plants generate energy through photosynthesis. As per the scientists, ?In photosynthesis, plants that are exposed to sunlight use carefully organised nanoscale structures within their cells to rapidly separate charges, pulling electrons away from the positively charged molecule that is left behind, and keeping positive and negative charges separated".

The two components that make the UCLA-developed system work are a polymer donor and a nano-scale fullerene acceptor. The polymer donor absorbs sunlight and passes electrons to the fullerene acceptor the process generates electrical energy

The new design is also more environmentally friendly than current technology, because the materials can assemble in water instead of more toxic organic solutions that are widely used today. The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells

For now, though, the UCLA research has proven that inexpensive photovoltaic materials can be organized in a way that greatly improves their ability to retain energy from sunlight

For more information :

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/the-good-earth/Plant-inspired-solar-cells-to-revolutionise-energy-storage/articleshow/47758007.cms

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-chemists-devise-technology-that-could-transform-solar-energy-storage