Solar World: Sea sponge solar

The marine organism, it turns out, has perfected a process for building nanostructured material from silica that “far exceeds human engineering,” according to Daniel Morse, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

Furthermore, it can build these silica structures under normal pH and temperature conditions, Morse told United Press International in a telephone interview. Currently, solar manufacturers need to spend a lot of money a creating high-temperature and low-pH environment in which to make PV.

“(I was) interested in what the underlying molecular mechanism was that allows organisms to achieve this,” Morse said.

He found it.

upi