Cabbage White butterfly Photo: Alamy
The Cabbage White butterfly may irritate gardeners with its unrelenting taste for brassicas but it may hold the key to making solar panels more efficient.
A team of experts from the University of Exeter have shown that mimicking the v-shaped posture adopted by Cabbage Whites to heat up their flight muscles before take-off, can raise the amount of solar power by nearly 50 per cent.
The secret appears to be the angle that the butterflies hold their wings, approximately 17 degrees from horizontal. It could even improve the effectiveness of sunbathing.
Cabbage White butterflies are known to take flight before other butterflies on cloudy days – which limit how quickly the insects can use the energy from the sun to heat their flight muscles.
This ability is thought to be due to the v-shaped posturing, known as reflectance basking, they adopt to maximise the concentration of solar energy, which allows for flight.
Angling solar panels in V shapes at 17 degrees could boost energy
Structures in the butterflies’ wings allow the light from the sun to be reflected most efficiently, ensuring that the flight muscles are warmed to an optimal temperature as quickly as possible.
“This proves that the lowly Cabbage White is not just a pest of your cabbages but actually an insect that is an expert at harvesting solar energy,” said Professor Richard ffrench-Constant, who conducts world-leading research into butterfly mimicry at the University of Exeter, said:
The team found that dtructures in the butterflies’ wings allow the light from the sun to be reflected most efficiently, ensuring that the flight muscles are warmed to an optimal temperature as quickly as possible.
The created a lightweight reflective material which mimicked the design and could be used in solar energy production.
“Biomimicry in engineering is not new. However, this truly multidisciplinary research shows pathways to develop low cost solar power that have not been done before,” Professor Tapas Mallick.
The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Read more:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11776300/Cabbage-White-butterfly-holds-secret-to-better-solar-panels.html
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