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The chemical that makes tomatoes red could also improve the efficiency and stability of solar panels.

Most commercial solar cells are silicon-based, but a new generation of solar cells made from thin films of perovskite, a titanium and calcium crystal, promise greater efficiencies and are easier to work with. However, perovskites degrade far more quickly than silicon-based cells, so improvements in stability are highly sought after.

at Jilin University in Changchun, China, and his colleagues chose to add lycopene, a pigment found in tomatoes and other red fruit and vegetables, to perovskite cells because they thought its powerful antioxidant properties might help slow degradation. The modified solar cells not only became more stable, losing about 8 per cent efficiency after 3500 hours, but were also 3 percentage points more efficient at converting light to power.

鈥淲hen UV is shone on human skin, [dietary] lycopene binds to free radicals produced by ultraviolet light to protect skin tissue from damage,鈥� says Zhou. 鈥淭herefore, we were curious whether lycopene has a similar effect on perovskite solar cells when exposed to ultraviolet and oxygen.鈥�

Zhou and his team think that, as well as binding with the perovskite to cut the amount of oxidation, the lycopene also improves efficiency by helping to reduce the number of microscopic grains in the crystal structure of the perovskite, which improves the flow of electricity.

鈥淭hree to four absolute percentage points increase in power conversion efficiency is pretty impressive,鈥� says at the University of Cambridge. 鈥淭he devices they make in the end aren鈥檛 the absolute best in the world, but the relative improvements from their control devices are pretty promising.鈥�

While the improvement in stability is notable, solar cells ready for commercial use need to be stable for around 30 years, says at the University of Liverpool, UK.