Will Kyle

To harness the energy from evaporation, a potential source of renewable electricity, we need water responsive (WR) materials. WR materials are materials that respond mechanically to a change in water level. This change typically comes in the form of a change in humidity, however it can also come from contact with liquid water. Oscillatoria tenuis, a kind of blue-green algae native to Brazil, is a newly discovered WR material that we investigated. The goal of this research is to develop a method for creating a WR device using material from the bacteria to measure and visualize its WR ability. In order to do this, we created a bilayer consisting of O. tenuis cells and a thin plastic sheet. By varying the humidity of the surrounding air, we can cause the bilayer to curl or straighten itself. We used a laser-cut plastic filter to precisely control the amount of bacteria deposited on each mylar sheet. Additionally, we discovered that a glass microscope slide effectively removes any excess bacteria not fitting into the filter. Because we are able to control the volume and dimensions of the O. tenuis on each bilayer, we will be able to measure the water responsive behavior’s strength and speed. This allows us to further investigate the nature of WR materials and hopefully determine what makes a material water responsive or not. The more we learn about WR materials, the more likely it becomes that they will actually be put to use generating energy sustainably.