Plants and trees are not only the world’s ‘lungs’. Their leaves create electric charge when, for example, raindrops or other materials fall on them. Contact electrification is relevant to processes including printing and energy harvesting. In nature, electric fields affect phenomena like pollination. Despite this relevance, little is known about what role surface electrification plays in nature.            
The ERC-funded EpiC project aims to find out how plants are affected by electrification and whether the generated charge can be used to power man-made devices. Answering these two questions could help the team to enable environmental sensing, robotics and synthetic reactors with energy-autonomous ‘artificial leaves’ while protecting the plants that host them.

FUNDER:  ERC Consolidator Grant 2023
TOPICS: surface phenomena, energy harvesting, soft robotics, biohybrid systems
PERIOD:  2025-2030 
FUNDING:  1,99 M€
COORDINATOR: Fabian Meder