Bio‐Based Solar Energy Harvesting for Onsite Mobile Optical Temperature Sensing in Smart Cities

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) fosters the development of smart city systems for sustainable living and increases comfort for people. One of the current challenges for sustainable buildings is the optimization of energy management. Temperature monitoring in buildings is of prime importance, as heating account for a great part of the total energy consumption. Here, a solar optical temperature sensor is presented with a thermal sensitivity of up to 1.23% °C−1 based on sustainable aqueous solutions of enhanced green fluorescent protein and C‐phycocyanin from biological feedstocks. These photonic sensors are presented under the configuration of luminescent solar concentrators widely proposed as a solution to integrate energy‐generating devices in buildings, as windows or façades. The developed mobile sensor is inserted in IoT context through the development of a self‐powered system able to measure, record, and send data to a user‐friendly website.

Wearable Optical Sensing in the Medical Internet of Things (MIoT) for Pervasive Medicine: Opportunities and Challenges

“…Human thermal comfort can be also monitored by wearable sweat sensors based on the humidity evaporation rate, the optical sensing structure of which is discussed in section . In addition, a novel spectroscopic temperature sensor based on bio-based fluorescent proteins has recently been reported . The relative thermal sensitivity of this luminescence thermometry is about 1.23% (°C) −1 , and it can improve comfort for people by optimizing heating–cooling processes in a building .…”

“…In addition, a novel spectroscopic temperature sensor based on bio-based fluorescent proteins has recently been reported. 197 The relative thermal sensitivity of this luminescence thermometry is about 1.23% (°C) −1 , and it can improve comfort for people by optimizing heating−cooling processes in a building. 198 At the same time, a structure with intrinsic sensing ability also has potential development prospects in the medical scenes.…”

Extraction and purification of phycobiliproteins from algae and their applications

“…Combining the sensing ability with that of sunlight harvesting, Correia et al (2022) reported a surprising example of a novel application by fabricating a sustainable solar optical temperature sensor based on PC aqueous solutions ( Figure 2A ). As PC optical features are temperature-dependent ( Figures 2B,C ), the electrical output of the PC-based LSC also varies ( Figure 2D ).…”

“…Moreover, the electrical power delivered by the coupled PV cells under solar radiation was enough to power a small circuit able to read voltage values, convert it to temperature and send real-time data through Wi-Fi to a smartphone app or website, bridging these sensors to the Internet of Things (IoT). The goal here was the building integration of photovoltaic and sensing units as smart windows, which could contribute to the future design of zero-energy buildings with enhanced energy consumption management ( Correia et al, 2022 ).…”

“…PC-based optical sensors temperature-dependent (B) emission and (C) excitation spectra excited at 380 nm and monitored at 715 nm, respectively, and (D) emission spectra and (E) generated short-circuit current under solar simulator irradiation. Reproduced from ( Correia et al, 2022 ) under a CC BY 4.0 license.…”