Aloe vera can be used to make a supercapacitor, a device that stores energy and is similar to a battery but discharges power faster. The supercapacitor can also be installed inside a living plant, to be used to power lights or charge low-power devices.
at the Beijing Institute of Technology in China and her colleagues have built the supercapacitor almost entirely from different parts of an aloe vera plant, with no additional materials apart from a single gold wire.
The outer layer of the aloe leaf, called the rind, was heated to high temperatures to produce activated carbon for making electrodes, while the juice inside was frozen to make an aerogel, which acts as the supercapacitor鈥檚 energy-conducting electrolyte.
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Once Zhao and her colleagues had assembled the capacitor 鈥� which is about 4 millimetres across, or around a quarter of the size of a human fingernail 鈥� they installed it inside living plants, including aloe, golden barrel cacti and a species of succulent called Pachyphytum oviferum.
鈥淵ou can appreciate the beauty of the plant, but you can also use the electricity generated from the plant,鈥� says Zhao.
The researchers then used nearby solar panels to charge the plant-based capacitors, which Zhao says transforms the plants into 鈥渆lectronic plants鈥�, or e-plants.
Although the energy-storage capacity was only enough to run small lights, and to potentially charge low-power devices like wearable technologies, Zhao says it could be useful for providing power to travellers who are lost in remote and harsh environments that host plants like aloe vera and cacti.
It might be possible to make the devices larger and store more energy, but this would require a larger incision in the plant, which could risk infection and damage.
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