ecofriend.com

3 Insects from which the solar industry can learn

Hornet

With the changing time and growing population the demand and consumption of energy is rising day by day. One of the most efficient sources of energy is solar energy. But the technology that is used by us to convert this solar energy into another form is highly inefficient. The solar panel can only convert 24% of solar energy into electricity and moreover the plant that converts this solar energy costs very high. But when we look around its solution can be found in nature itself.

From last many million years of evolution the nature has adapted some of the insects that can convert solar energy into other forms and the results are much more efficient than our solar panels.

Here are three insects from which our scientist could learn something to convert solar energy into other forms of energy.

1. Moth: Moth’s inner eye

Moth

Moths are such insects from which our scientist can learn many things. The inner eye of the moth is of deep black color. It is one of the least reflecting surfaces of all other surfaces. And due to this texture of the eye moths have a sensitive night vision. The reflection of the moth eye is so low that the moth can find food in darkness. Moth can be of great use to scientist for study because of its inner eye. As we all know the less the solar cell can reflect, the more it can convert the solar energy. If we are successful in building such solar cells then 98% of the sunlight could be converted into electricity. Though the trial has been made by many scientist and one of the experiments was carried out by the Japanese scientists. They replicated the texture of the moth eye over an acrylic resin film and that film is used over the solar cells and because of that the efficiency of solar cells increased by 7%. And In some coming years the solar cells with such films will be sold out commercially to satisfy the modern demands.

2. Oriental hornet: Stripes on its body

Hornet

There is a pigment in the body of the hornet that is named as Xanthopterin. Because of this pigment the stripes on the abdomen of the hornet are of yellow color. And this pigment acts as a biological cooling pump that helps the hornet to cool its body. Our scientists believe that this is one of the best solar panel of the nature because of its efficiency to convert the sunlight directly into other forms of energy.

Last year scientists from Israel and UK dipped the electrodes of solar cells into this Xanthopterin that was extracted from the Hornets but the results was not satisfactory. The cells only achieve the efficiency of a single percent. The researchers say that this pigment can only work with the materials present in the body of the hornet and thus they are trying to replicate a structure made by the similar material present in the hornet. If this research got success then we may have the best solar cells of all time.

3. Swallowtail butterfly: The wings of the swallowtail butterfly

Swallowtail butterfly

The wings of the swallow tail butterfly are another miracle of the nature. Our researchers could also learn from it. The wings of the swallowtail butterfly do not reflect any of the sunrays. Due to this reason the body temperature of swallowtail butterfly remains stable and helps the butterfly to regulate its temperature.

Similar to the moth’s eye its wings do not reflect the sunlight and if it do not reflect any sunlight than positively it can absorb the sunrays efficiently and convert them to other forms of energy. As the wings of the butterfly are flat in nature so it is easy to imitate and similar structures can be applied to solar cells to increase their efficiency.

A team of researchers formed similar structure like its wings by using titanium dioxide scales and applied it over the solar cells that increase its efficiency by 10 percent. And the similar cells will be available in the market in next 2 years. Though our technology cannot meet the nature’s evolution but surely by studying and replicating some of the substances and insects we can increase our efficiency to use sunlight.

Today's Top Articles:

Scroll to Top