Wires and supercapacitors constructed inside living plants

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Quote :: A special structure for storing energy known as a supercapacitor has been constructed in a plant for the first time. The plant, a rose, can be charged and discharged hundreds of times.

In November 2015, the research group presented results showing that they had caused roses to absorb a conducting polymer solution. Conducting hydrogel formed in the rose's stem in the form of wires. With an electrode at each end and a gate in the middle, a fully functional transistor was created. The results were recently presented in Science Advances.

One member of the group, Assistant Professor Roger Gabrielsson, has now developed a material specially designed for this application. The material polymerizes inside the rose without any external trigger. The innate fluid that flows inside the rose contributes to create long, conducting threads, not only in the stem but also throughout the plant, out into the leaves and petals.

"We have been able to charge the rose repeatedly, for hundreds of times without any loss on the performance of the device. The levels of energy storage we have achieved are of the same order of magnitude as those in supercapacitors. The plant can, without any form of optimization of the system, potentially power our ion pump, for example, and various types of sensors," says Eleni Stavrinidou, Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics.

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