Electronic Plants: Roses Implanted With Electronic Circuits

Researchers at Linkoping University in Sweden created analog and digital electronics circuits inside living plants. Scientists have created the Cyborg rose, which is a living thing that has electrodes running through its vascular system. “No one’s done this before”, said Professor Berggren, who was the lead researcher in this latest accomplishment. The researchers were able to substitute the vascular system usually used to distribute water and nutrients with circuits.

“Although many attempts have been made to augment plant function with electroactive materials, [until now] plants” “circuitry’ has never been directly merged with electronics”, writes the reseach team.

Roger Gabrielsson found that the polymer PEDOT-S would be converted into a hydrogel when absorbed into a rose.

“Previously, we had no good tools for measuring the concentration of various molecules in living plants”.

Researchers develop roses equipped with biocompatible electronics [Image via Dan Kitwood/Getty Images News]According to a report from New Scientist, the experiment opens the door for electronics that can plug into plants.

While it’s unlikely that your next computer will be grown, this kind of technology is hugely exciting for ecologists and plant biologists because it is now possible to monitor the activities of plants in a more intimate level – kind of like how we are able to study the human heart and brain, Popular Science reported. The research could pave the way for organic electronics made from a living plant’s conducting tissues and supporting fibers.

The idea of putting electronics directly into trees for the paper industry originated in the 1990s while the LOE team at Linköping University was researching printed electronics on paper.

In 2012, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation granted new research money to revive the halted project.

Mr Gomez used another method common in plant biology – vacuum infiltration – to send another PEDOT variant together with nanocellulose fibres into the foliage of the rose. The cellulose forms a 3-D structure with small cavities – like a sponge – inside the rose leaf, and the cavities are filled with the conductive polymer.

The combination led to the creation of an electrochemical transistor that converts ionic signals into electronic output. Electrochemical cells are thus formed with a number of pixels, partitioned by the veins.

“Now we can really start talking about “power plants” – we can place sensors in plants and use the energy formed in the chlorophyll, produce green antennas or produce new materials”, Professor Berggren said. “Everything occurs naturally, and we use the plants’ own very advanced systems”. By suffusing the leaf with PEDOT and using voltage to manipulate the position of the polymers relative to the leaf’s surface, they created a very slow, very crude, but functional monochromatic screen.

Though it’s still in the early stages, the research aims to apply these findings for developments in energy, sustainability and plant interaction.