Gold Ingredient In New Solar-Power Gatherer

Attempting to parallel the process by which plants gather solar energy using chlorophyll, Richard Watt and a team of students put together a mixture of citric acid (from oranges) and a protein to see if said protein would help gather energy from sunlight. They then added some gold to see if it would turn purple, indicating that energy had been stored:

Success was theirs: within 20 minutes, Watt held in his mortal hands a flask of purest ... purple.

The team believe that the purple sunlight-storing protein can be incorporated into a battery or fuel cell and so output its solar harvest in the form of electricity.

Full boffinry detail is available here courtesy of the Journal of Nanoparticle Research. Readers may be interested to note that Professor Watt is apparently a descendant of James Watt, the 18th-century Scottish engineer who famously improved the Newcomen steam engine and in the process kick-started the Industrial Revolution (though there are those who'd argue that his rigorously enforced patents thereafter held it back somewhat)

As is usual in the case of wonders from the lab, commercialization is a long way off (if at all.)