Plants and electronics frequently get along, but you don’t see electronics in plants — not surprisingly, it’s hard to insert circuitry without killing the host. Swedish scientists just overcame one of the biggest hurdles to creating these strange cyborgs, however. They’ve successfully made the key elements of an electronic circuit inside of a rose and light up ions inside the flower’s leaves. The trick was to insert a special polymer that self-assembled into wires throughout the stem, carrying electricity without cutting off the flow of life-giving nutrients.
via Engadget
Image: Panoramic Images
For people who can’t keep SOCs on, crack PCBs just by fingering a connector, but can grow plants, plant surgery gone…well, they their transistor characteristics fast rather than keep the leaves in D.I. water for a week, but just look at it. (CC licensed paper on Science Advances.) http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/10/e1501136.full#F6
PEDOT:PSS (Clevios PH 1000, Heraeus) was mixed with dimethyl sulfoxide (Merck Schuchardt OHG), glycerol (Sigma-Aldrich), and cellulose nanofiber (Innventia, aqueous solution at 0.59 wt %) in the following (aqueous) ratio: 0.54:0.030:0.0037:0.42, respectively.
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