Difference between revisions of "Team:CLSB-UK/Description"

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<p> We have decided to focus our effort on improving the efficiency of Biological Photovoltaic Cells, a next generation version of the Solar Panel, which harnesses photosynthetic organisms to convert solar energy into electrical energy.
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<p> At the heart of any iGEM team is the project - the central idea that connects all the work they do. Our project aims to build the foundations for what has the potential to tackle to world energy crisis. By taking a step forward in providing a sustainable energy source with a negative Carbon Footprint we are helping to change the world. At heart our project is simple: modern solar panels leave a lot to be desired due to their low efficiency, their bulkiness and their high price. Biological Photovoltaics have the potential to provide a far cheaper, simpler energy source that can take up Carbon Dioxide from the air instead of pump more into it. If only scientists would modify some organism so that it can be used efficiently inside one. This is where we come in. Click on the solar panel on the house to find out more. </p>
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The modern silicon solar panel has many problems. It is expensive to make and bulky, and it has a low Shockley-Queisser limit of around 34%. Thus our project aims to apply a genetic engineering approach towards developing a next-gen solar panel with the use of bacteria within a microbial fuel cell. We take traditional microbial fuel cell (MFC) designs and modify them to create a biological photovoltaic cell (BPV). By using cyanobacteria in our BPV, we can extract the energy that has been harvested from light. This has the potential to be a future sustainable and eco-friendly practice for the production of renewable energy. However, a major pitfall of the use of the BPV as a form of bioelectricity generation is the fact that it has low efficiency and this was an obstacle that we aimed to overcome in our design. </p>
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Revision as of 17:53, 19 October 2016

At the heart of any iGEM team is the project - the central idea that connects all the work they do. Our project aims to build the foundations for what has the potential to tackle to world energy crisis. By taking a step forward in providing a sustainable energy source with a negative Carbon Footprint we are helping to change the world. At heart our project is simple: modern solar panels leave a lot to be desired due to their low efficiency, their bulkiness and their high price. Biological Photovoltaics have the potential to provide a far cheaper, simpler energy source that can take up Carbon Dioxide from the air instead of pump more into it. If only scientists would modify some organism so that it can be used efficiently inside one. This is where we come in. Click on the solar panel on the house to find out more.