Van Gogh-inspired glow-in-the-dark cycle path

Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde has designed a glow-in-the-dark cycle path based on Vincent Van Gogh's painting The Starry Night, which opened to the public this week.

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https://youtu.be/wEe8firurCY

The glow-in-the-dark cycle path absorbs energy from the sun during the day and releases it at night, causing the particles embedded in the ground to glow like a carpet of stars.

The system offers an environmentally-friendly alternative to street lighting and its anti-slip properties make it ideal for use on bike paths.

If the light from the glow-in-the-dark cycle lane proves insufficient, trees with naturally-glowing leaves could soon illuminate streets without without the need for conventional street lamps. Researchers in Taiwan have discovered that the addition of gold nanoparticles to the leaves of the Bacopa Caroliniana tree causes them to glow.

The glowing plants reduce light pollution while at the same time absorbing CO₂.

Dr Yen-Hsun Su at Taiwan’s Cheng Kung University was working on alternatives to LED lights when he discovered that tiny particles of gold caused chlorophyll in the plants 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.”