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  • WHERE I WORK

Power plants: making electricity from flowers and fruits

Chemist María Fernanda Cerdá uses natural dyes from Uruguay’s indigenous flora to build solar cells.
By
  1. Linda Nordling

    1. Linda Nordling is a freelance writer in Cape Town, South Africa.

María Fernanda Cerdá in the Biomaterials Laboratory, purifying plant matter for use in solar cells for electricity.

María Fernanda Cerdá is a chemist at the University of the Republic in Montevideo. Credit: Pablo Albarenga for Nature

I build solar cells using natural dyes that I find in fruit and flowers. Plant pigments called anthocyanins absorb light and turn it into energy to fuel photosynthesis, and I harness that power to generate electricity. The technology to convert plant dyes into electricity was developed in Switzerland, but I’m applying it to plants that are indigenous to my home country, Uruguay, including its national flower, the ceibo (Erythrina crista-galli).

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Nature 596, 310 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02171-9

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