A Binghamton University student’s unique approach to photosynthesis could make solar technology more effective.

The new extraction method is being researched by Yehudah Pardo, a junior majoring in bioengineering.

“All organisms undergo photosynthesis, the process which absorbs light and puts it into usable energy,” Pardo said. “My project focuses on capturing the moving electrons during this process, and using them to produce electricity that could power a large scale solar panel.”

The conventional method of producing electricity for solar panels is through silicon, a semi-conductor which is 30 percent efficient at converting light into electricity.

Photosystems, the functional unit of photosynthesis, may be much more efficient. Some parts of a plant’s photosynthetic engine are known to be 95 percent to nearly 100 percent efficient at being able to absorb and convert light.

“The main advantage of extracting photosystems is that it is much more efficient than conventional methods of producing electricity,” Pardo said. “On a molecular scale, photosystems are very efficient, and I have been working on a unique extraction process that, if harnessed properly, could be used on a large scale.”

Pardo said that his extraction method that he uses is different than those of his predecessors. Older methods involve smashing the cells into pieces and dissolving them with chemicals in order to remove the photosystems from the cells.

Pardo’s process, however, uses genetic modification to move the photosystems into the outer membrane.

“It has a lot of potential advantages since the photosystem is maintained in the membrane,” he explained. “It is easier to reach, will be more stable, and will degrade slower.”

The current stage of Pardo’s research has been focused on the process of extracting the outer membrane vesicles in cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae.

“No one has ever studied this for any photosynthetic value, and the hope is to be able to create electricity efficiently through this process and put them in a solar panel,” Pardo said.

Pardo generally spends three to four days a week in the lab, working five hours at a time in hopes that one day his project will turn into a commercially viable method for efficiently producing electricity for solar panels.

“Nobody that I know of has tried to do this, and the extraction method I have come up with has the potential to channel energy more efficiently since photosystems can absorb all wavelengths of light, and one day perhaps be used on a grand scale to power solar panels,” he said.

Pardo has faced some setbacks in the five years he has been working on this project.

“Research is full of stumbling blocks and failures, and if you haven’t at least failed once then you are not doing research,” Pardo said. “I remember one instance when my cultures were contaminated, and so I couldn’t work with them. The community college I had been working at gave me a budget of $500, but every culture [cost] about $200, and that was a bad setback.”

The inspiration for this project came to Pardo during work he did for a county science fair.

“I had been entering the science county fair since the fifth grade, and every year I came up with new and more interesting ideas,” Pardo said. “The idea for this project started as an idea for a science county when I was in high school, and I eventually ended up working at a lab facility on the project.”