BioPhotoVoltaic table…stay with me here…it’s genius

All my years of High School science have done me bugger all good save for one process in nature I can still understand and even explain if asked: photosynthesis.

Handy then that I can tell you about this gadget, a piece of designer furniture that uses the energy released (and wasted) in photosynthesis to charge your smartphone or light a bulb.

The folk at BioPhotoVoltaics, who can explain to you many more processes in nature than I, have developed this table to demonstrate a potential future application of BPV technology.

BPV devices, like this table, generate electricity from light energy by exploiting the photosynthesis of living organisms such as moss, algae and vascular plants.

While not enough energy is being developed by BPV yet, not even enough to power that light you see, the potential is there and the hurdles that need to be jumped are being overcome.

At the moment the table plays a little animation which demonstrates the energy coming off of it.

For those who I didn’t lose during the science lesson: the table currently produces 520 Joules (J) of energy per day. A typical laptop requires about 25J per second, so in a day the table would produce enough energy to power a laptop for just 20 seconds!