New lab-grown bacteria can work like solar panels and outshine plants at photosynthesis

Researchers at the University of Berkeley have taught bacteria to cover themselves with nanocrystals, which have been found to be better than plants at capturing and making use of the sun's energy.

Scientists believe that this "artificial photosynthesis" is the next step to generating renewable energy through sunlight. The bacteria, when exposed to sunlight, showed 80% efficiency at converting sunlight to energy as opposed to only 2% efficiency of plants, according to a report by phys.org.

Scientists have hailed this as a zero-waste technology as the process is self replicating and self regenerating.

"Rather than rely on inefficient chlorophyll to harvest sunlight, I've taught bacteria how to grow and cover their bodies with tiny semiconductor nanocrystals," says Dr Kelsey K Sakimoto, lead researcher. "These nanocrystals are much more efficient than chlorophyll and can be grown at a fraction of the cost of manufactured solar panels" he added.

Bacteria that was used for this study is a naturally occurring non-photosynthetic organism called Moorella thermoacetica. It is known to produce acetic acid from carbon-dioxide in nature, notes phys.org. "Once covered with these tiny solar panels, the bacteria can synthesize food, fuels and plastics, all using solar energy," Sakimoto says.
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