Scientists at Linkoping University made bean roots conduct electricity and store energy. For this, the plants were watered with a solution with a conjugated ETE-S oligomer. It absorbed into fabrics and created a conductive polymer film, liu.se reports.
Bean roots could conduct electricity for at least a month with an indicator of 10 siemens per centimeter.
(Siemens is the reciprocal of an ohm for electrical conductivity. By definition, Siemens is equal to the electrical conductivity of a conductor whose resistance is 1 ohm.)
To store energy, scientists created a supercapacitor, in which the roots worked like electrodes in the process of charging and discharging. During the study, the beans grew and developed normally.
Before that, scientists conducted a similar experiment with roses. A bean-based supercapacitor stored 100 times more energy than a flower cell.
***
Why used car tires become a new type of black gold in Nigeria?
Entrepreneur Ifedolapo Runsewe has set up Freetown Waste Management Recycle, an industrial plant that transforms old tires into paving bricks, floor tiles, and other goods. Read this amazing story here!
