Carvey Ehren Maigue, a student at Mapua University in the Phillipines, has found a way to power solar panels by utilizing food waste to harvest light, even on cloudy days. Maigue's AuReus: solar panels (named after the Aurora Borealis, which inspired his invention) can produce energy almost half of the time, compared with current panels which only produce energy about 15-25% of the time.
"Maigue retrieved the luminescent particles found in some food waste and trapped them in a resin substrate. When these particles are hit by UV light, they absorb and reflect light. The reflections of visible light are concentrated to the edges of the panels, where PV cells capture them to convert to DC electricity."
via My Modern Met
