Photosynthesis is much better than panels to capture and use solar energy – TVI24

A pioneering research on the process Photosynthesis in plants, developed by an international team of scientists concluded that nature is able to capture and use solar energy “much better than current photovoltaic panels.”

The group of researchers, including experts from the Department of Coimbra Physics, “was able to simulate the light-gathering process of the gigantic structure of molecules – the ‘antenna’ known as ‘Light-Harvesting Complex II’ – involved in first step of photosynthesis in plants “, today announced the University of Coimbra (UC).

This was the first time it has been studied “all huge structure (about 18,000 atoms)” of what you can “call” the machine’s starter photosynthesis, using exclusively to quantum mechanics “, underlines the UC, in a note released today.

The results are important to” understand how nature solves the problem of taking and using the energy from the sun, “says Fernando Nogueira, computational physics expert and coordinator of the Portuguese team involved in the study.

The capture and use of solar energy by plants is made of “an extraordinarily efficient” and “much better than current photovoltaic panels,” says Fernando Nogueira, cited by UC.

Researchers have identified, “through an unprecedented calculation, who does what in this giant and intricate kind of chlorophylls network.”

One chlorophyll molecule has “the lead role in photosystem structure,” adds the expert of UC, noting that all other molecules “act as ‘antennas’ of energy harvesting, transferring it immediately to the central molecule, which is where we give the following steps of the process. “

The way you handle the energy transfer to the center the reaction is still a puzzle and the next step of the research is to understand “how these ‘antennas’ transmitting power to the central molecule”, said Fernando Nogueira, noting that, in this work, was collected “a multitude of information , it is necessary to disentangle “.

The result of this research, which involved five years of “complex studies and more than 30 million hours of calculation in European supercomputers”, are already published “online” and will headline the theme of an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP).