Tobacco Plants Used for Electricity

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A group of scientists tried to inject into tobacco plants bacteria for to produce solar cells, electricity.
Tobacco plants could help the world to produce fossil fuels,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], according to scientists from the University of California, Berkeley. Scientists used bacteria to generate the building blocks for artificial photovoltaic and photochemical cells. This method could lead to cheap,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], temporary and biodegradable solar cells.
“It’s very difficult to recreate photosynthesis, because the precision of each structure is very important, and it’s very hard to pick up one molecule and put it where you want it to be,” said Angela Belcher,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a researcher at MIT who uses viruses to build batteries and other structures.
Trapped within the plant, the small structures don’t produce electricity or chemicals. To get at the synthetic chromophores,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], scientists would have to harvest the plants, chop them up, and then extract the structures. Dissolved in a liquid solution, the structures are pulverized over a glass or plastic substrate coated with molecules that protect the rods to the plastic.