Near infrared flourescence imaging shows carbon nanotubes (orange) inside a leafJUAN PABLO GIRALDO AND NICOLE M. IVERSONThe technique: Researchers have boosted the photosynthetic activity of plants by delivering carbon nanotubes into chloroplasts, the plant-cell organelles that house the molecular machinery that converts solar energy into sugars.
A team led by Michael Strano, a chemical engineer at MIT, showed that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) coated with single-stranded DNA infiltrate the lipid envelope of extracted plant chloroplasts and assemble alongside photosynthetic proteins. The same thing happened when the SWNTs were delivered into living Arabidopsis thaliana leaves through microscopic pores known as stomata.
The researchers then demonstrated that photosynthetic activity was more than three times higher in in chloroplasts containing SWNTs than in controls. While the precise mechanism is not entirely clear, the authors proposed that SWNTs increase the amount of light that is captured by photosynthetic molecules.
As part of this study, published today (March 16) in Nature Materials, the researchers also showed that nanoparticles laced with cerium oxide reduced concentrations of reactive ...
