Sunflower-Solar System Could Collect Energy

摘要

To make solar power more efficient, researchers are looking to nature for inspiration. Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) developed a bio-mimicking material that bends to gather more sunlight, just as sunflowers and other plants do. Many plants naturally turn toward the sun, a phenomenon called phototro-pism. In densely packed areas, sunflowers even turn or lean in to zigzag patterns to maximize the sunlight they take in. A study by crop ecophysiologist Antonio Hall found that sunflowers allowed to track the sun yielded 25-50% more seeds than ones wired and forced to remain vertical.