Photosynthetic Proteins example essay topic

Summary: Researchers have developed a solar cell that converts sunlight into energy through the photosynthetic's of plants. Grounded and purified spinach to harvest photosynthetic proteins. They did this because this released a necessary protein. Proteins act as cell membranes, allowing the functioning of proteins outside their natural environment. Proteins absorb light and deflect electrons in order to create an electric current. When the photosynthetic proteins are taken out of their environment, they die.

A scientist figured out that detergent peptides could be manipulated to keep the proteins alive. Spinach was used because it cheap and a plant found everywhere. A top layer of glass was coated underneath the conductive material with a layer of gold to aid the chemical reaction. The middle, the spinach-peptide mixture sits on a soft, organic semiconductor that presents electrical shorts and protects the protein complexes from a bottom layer of metal. The energy from the process is little but when it is combined with millions others, it produces a big amount of energy. Lastly, this is the first photosynthetic protein molecular combined with a solid state electronic device.

Benefits to Society: There are many benefits of this discovery in science although this wont be used in application for many years to come. The process is very a useful breakthrough because we can isolate the photosynthetic cells from plants for long periods of time. This will allow use to use photosynthetic cells later for other experiments. This allows us to create solar cells from materials used in our everyday lives. Also the solar cells would not degrade over time and replenish themselves. Also the spinach is very cheap so this would be a cheap investment, and wouldn't expand very much of anybody's money.

Even though the energy created from spinach is not that much, but when you put together millions and billions of these together you can provide an alternate energy source for people. The advantages of this are that its lightweight, portable and environmental friendly. Also, this helps us from destroying plants and other specimens of nature in order to create energy. If photosynthesis is taking place in these solar cells, then oxygen is the waste material, and that is what we breathe in our everyday lives. By using these devices, we are supplying ourselves with oxygen and not giving anything up. Next, this process helps us because if we expand all the energy in the world, we have a easy way to create energy without expanding all our natural resources.

Lastly the process creates no wastes, and will leave a safe footprint on the environment. All in all, this breakthrough has many great benefits to society, and will help us better our lives.