Science Daily November 8, 2021
By watering bean plants with a solution that contains conjugated oligomers an international team of researchers (Sweden, France, Spain, Greece) has shown that the roots of the plant become electrically conducting and can store energy. To circumvent biological barriers encountered in previous attempts, and access the internal tissue, the researchers leveraged the biocatalytic machinery of the plant cell wall to seamlessly integrate conductors with mixed ionic–electronic conductivity along the root system of the plants. They used a trimer, ETE-S, which is polymerized by a natural process in the plant. The roots remained electrically conducting for at least four weeks, with a conductivity in the roots of approximately 10 S/cm (Siemens per centimetre). They built a root-based supercapacitor in which the roots functioned as electrodes during charging and discharging. It could store 100 times more energy than previous experiments with supercapacitors in plants that used the plant stem. The plants in the experiments developed a more complex root system, continued to grow, and produce beans…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Abstract. Credit: Mater. Horiz., 2021, Advance ArticleÂ