Bio-Inspired Nanomaterials

Abstract

The new era of today’s world is renewable energy. This is because it is reliable in terms of generation and storage, when it is required. There are plenty of renewable energy sources available, viz. solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, ocean etc. The harnessing of energy from these resources is very challenging in terms of making it available and cost effective. There is also a broad area left, in which new or alternate approaches to energy production can be taken, such as the use of the bionanotechnological sector. This chapter focuses on the bio-mechanism of energy generation from the sun with respect to the use of bionanomaterial for the construction of artificial plant cells which are capable of artificial photosynthesis. I classical PV system absorbs generally all types of radiation coming from the sun ranging from infrared to ultraviolet. In contrast to this, chlorophyll and other photosynthetic pigments absorb only visual light. Due to this, there is a huge research area open for introducing bio-inspired nanomaterial-based pigment to plant cells that will help in capturing a larger solar spectrum. This will certainly boost the area of bio-photovoltaics.