Glowing bio-LED trees could replace street lamps

Trees with naturally-glowing leaves could provide an environmentally-friendly alternative to street lamps. Researchers in Taiwan have discovered that adding nanoparticles of gold to the leaves of the Bacopa Caroliniana tree causes its leaves to glow.

Dr Ye-Hsun points out that this is potentially a win-win-win situation, with the glowing plants reducing power usage, and lowering light pollution, while absorbing CO2.

Dr Yen-Hsun Su from at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University was working on alternatives to LED lights when the discovery came about.

‘Bio-LED’ lights

The tiny particles of gold cause chlorophyll in the plants leaves to produce a reddish luminescence.

Dr Yen-Hsun Su told Chemistry World: “In the future, bio-LED could be used to make roadside trees luminescent at night. This will save energy and absorb CO2 as the bio-LED luminescence will cause the chloroplast to conduct photosynthesis.”

ETA comment: Too many lights

I have often wondered why so many lights are left on – especially between one and five in the morning. Pedestrians and motorists require different types of lighting. Lighting just for pedestrians is cheaper.

If organisations responsible for lighting, as part of their planned maintenance and replacement programmes devised lighting that catered specially for driving and lighting that was especially for walking separately then they would be able to turn off the lights for drivers but keep on the lower-powered lights for pedestrians. Naturally, this would generally only apply to main roads, but bio-LED technology could provide an ideal solution for lighting for pedestrians.