Inventions using trees

Artificial Leaves
Image by sarako via Flickr

Trees are one of the most important resources of life, scientists are trying to use trees in several matters and some scientists tried to imitate the functions of the real trees so that we benefit more.

It is an artificial tree that is able to capture carbon dioxide a thousand times faster that a real tree. the synthetic tree gathers the greenhouse gas on a sorbent, cleans and pressures the carbon dioxide and then releases it.  The tree can be placed almost anywhere.


Piezoelectric tree to convert wind energy to electric power

Is a technology that uses the concept of piezoelectricity to build an artificial tree that can harvest wind energy to produce electricity! by connecting Synthetic piezoelectric leaves to a stem and these leaves flap in the wind like an oscillating flag. The device is then able to convert the energy in wind into electric power.


Artificial Leaves May Create Hydrogen Fuel from Sunlight and Water

Scientists from the State Key Lab of Matrix Composites at China’s Shanghai Jiaotong University designed the AIL (Artificial Inorganic Leaf) blueprint using biomimicry. By using spectroscopic techniques to study leaves of Anemone vitifolia, a plant native to China, scientists gained a better understanding of how to focus and guide solar energy into light-harvesting sections of the leaf. Plus, they learned more about the macro- and microstructures of plants’ photocatalysts. By infiltrating leaves with titanium dioxide (a photocatalyst) and platinum, researchers believe they’ve created a design for a fully functioning AIL.
Creating hydrogen fuel means splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen (electrolysis). While scientists have achieved this feat before, making hydrogen fuel has been exceedingly expensive, so it wouldn’t really be practical when compared to powering cars with gasoline or electricity. But by using sunlight with the AIL, scientists may finally create a cheap way to produce hydrogen fuel. Unlike traditional cars, which spew tons of greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen-powered vehicles emit only water vapor.

Lockheed Martin decided to use its fleet of C-130 Hercules cargo aircrafts, that was used before to drop land mines, to drop trees, each cargo plane will be equipped with the necessary tools to be able to drop up to 900,000 trees in one day.
The aircrafts will fly at an altitude of 1,000 feet at a speed of 130 knots. Using the same technique as before (but with cones instead of land mines), they will be able to plant 3,000 cones each minute, the cones are created in a way to bury themselves after hitting the soil. The casing of the tree bombs will dissolve and the trees will take root, having all that is needed for a tree to grow, including moisture and a measure of fertilizer, informs TreeHugger.

5 thoughts on “Inventions using trees”

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      Eman

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