Luminescent Solar Concentrators from Food Substances: A Safe and Simple Experiment to Approach Sunlight Energy Harvesting

Safe and visually appealing experiments can help the general public, even from a young age, to better understand the fundamental role of chemistry and materials in the energy transition and our everyday lives. Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are efficient devices for harvesting sunlight based on the fluorescent compounds' properties. They constitute an exciting demonstration platform to engage audiences because of their coloration, intriguing interaction with light, and relevance toward the UN sustainability goals. While LSCs are usually made of transparent plastic and fluorescent dyes, in this study, they were fabricated employing only ready-available common food materials, such as isomalt, an amorphous sugar, and vitamin B2 or curcumin as edible fluorophores. This makes the fabrication procedure remarkably safe and rapid without affecting the final LSC's performances, which were comparable to other state-of-the-art devices. Furthermore, a simple and rapid characterization of LSC was developed for qualitative performance determination and required only two smartphones. The gathered results render this approach appealing to design interesting dissemination experiments where the participants can explore the phenomenon of fluorescence and understand the principles behind functional real-world applications such as LSCs. In this sense, this demonstration offers an interesting take to discuss one of the many roles of chemistry in the energy transition.

Automated summary

Safe and visually appealing experiments using luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) can help the public understand the role of chemistry and materials in the energy transition. This study demonstrates the fabrication of LSCs using common food materials, making it safe and rapid without affecting performance. The development of a simple characterization method using smartphones adds to the appeal of this approach for disseminating knowledge about fluorescence and real-world applications.