From Colin Druce-McFadden’s Dvice piece about houseplants perhaps being the future of solar cells:

“Photosynthesis is a pretty basic process that scientists have understood for quite a while. But a recent breakthrough in the collection of solar energy just might have a few members of the scientific community dusting off their biology textbooks. A team of researchers at the University of Georgia have reportedly figured out how to harness photosynthesis in the creation of electricity.

It’s actually something that it turns out is pretty intuitive, because of the way plants use solar energy to feed themselves is by splitting up water molecules and using the electrons in the creation of sugars. But the research team at the University of Georgia decided that a better use of those electrons, freed by plants from water molecules, were better off powering our devices for us.”