'Jellyfish' smoothies
(CNN) -- Putting thousands of jellyfish in a blender to make a smoothie sounds like the start of bad joke. In fact, it's one way to source ingredients for a new generation of solar power solutions that could aid medical science and offer cheap energy.
Scientists say by liquidizing the humble Aequorea victoria -- a glow-in-the-dark jellyfish commonly found off the western coast of North America -- they can use the green fluorescent protein (GFP) it contains to create miniature fuel cells.
These, say their creators, could be used to power microscopic "nanodevices" that could operate independently inside the human body, helping reverse blindness or fight tumors.
Nanotechnology -- the manipulation of matter at an atomic scale (one nanometer is equivalent to one billionth of a meter) -- is seen by many as the future of medicine, but the science of powering nano-machinery is still in its infancy.
Which is where the jellyfish come in.
Zackary Chiragwandi at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden told CNN he has developed a method of generating power at a nano-level by administration a droplet of jellyfish-type GFP onto aluminum electrodes and exposing it to ultraviolet light.
The technique, he says, is more foolproof than existing light-powered cells, doing away with the need for expensive and tricky titanium elements found in "Gratzel cells" -- acclaimed solar-power fuel cells that mimic plant photosynthesis.
Chiragwandi says his cell can even utilize enzymes from fireflies and Renilla reniformis sea pansies to create its own light source, making it completely self-contained.
In Chiragwandi's "biophotovoltaic nanodevice," electrons flow through a circuit when light hits the green fluorescent protein. He says this generates a current measuring "tens of nano amperes."
The amount may seem negligible, but if scaled up would appear to offer a more efficient power supply than existing solar cells.............
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/09/27/jellyfish.solar.power/
