Scientists have created rechargeable, multicolored, glow-in-the-dark succulent plants

By Issy Ronald and Amarachi Orie, CNN

Glow-in-the-dark plants bright enough to light up streets at night may sound like the stuff of science fiction or fantasy.

But scientists have already made plants that emit a greenish glow. They are even commercially available in the United States.

A group of Chinese researchers has just gone even further, creating what they say are the first multicolored and brightest-ever luminescent plants.

“Picture the world of Avatar, where glowing plants light up an entire ecosystem,” biologist Shuting Liu, a researcher at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou and co-author of the study published August 27 in the journal Matter, said in a statement.

“We wanted to make that vision possible using materials we already work with in the lab. Imagine glowing trees replacing streetlights,” she added.

To make the plants glow, Liu and her fellow researchers injected the leaves of the succulent Echeveria “Mebina” with strontium aluminate, a material often used in glow-in-the-dark toys that absorbs light and gradually releases it over time.

This method marks a departure from the traditional gene-editing technique that scientists use to achieve this effect, following a model pioneered by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Injecting a plant with nanoparticles instead of editing its genes allowed the researchers to create plants that glow red, blue and green. Normally, constrained by the plant’s natural color, scientists can only create a green glow.

“Gene editing is an excellent approach,” Liu told CNN in an email Tuesday, but added: “We were particularly inspired by inorganic afterglow materials that can be ‘charged’ by light and then release it slowly as afterglow, as well as by prior efforts on glowing plants that hinted at plant-based lighting — even concepts like plant streetlights.”

“Our goal was therefore to integrate multicolor, long-afterglow materials with plants to move beyond the usual color limits of plant luminescence and provide a photosynthesis-independent way for plants to store and release light —essentially, a light charged, living plant lamp,” she added.

The research team attempted to show the practical application of their idea by constructing a green wall made of 56 plants that produced enough light to see text, images and a person located up to 10 centimeters (four inches) away, according to the study.

Once injected and placed under direct sunlight for a couple of minutes, the plants continued to glow for up to two hours.

While the brightness of the afterglow gradually weakened during that time period, “plants can be recharged repeatedly by exposure to sunlight,” Liu said, replenishing the plants’ stored energy and “allowing the plants to continue glowing after the sunlight is removed.”

The plants maintain the ability to emit the afterglow effect 25 days after treatment, Liu said, and older leaves injected with the afterglow particles continue to emit light under UV stimulation “even after wilting.”

While strontium aluminate can readily decompose in plants, posing harm to plant tissue, Liu said, the scientists developed a chemical coating for the material that acts as a protective barrier.

The researchers said in the paper that they see their findings as highlighting “the potential of luminescent plants as sustainable and efficient lighting systems, capable of harvesting sunlight during the day and emitting light at night.”

However, other scientists are skeptical about the practicality. “I like the paper, it’s fun, but I think it’s a little beyond current technology, and it might be beyond what plants can bear,” biochemist John Carr, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the study, told CNN.

“Because of the limited amount of energy that these plants can emit, I don’t really see them as streetlights anytime soon,” he added.

Liu acknowledged that the plants “are still far from providing functional illumination, as their luminescence intensity remains too weak for practical lighting applications. Additionally, the safety assessment of afterglow particles for both plants and animals is still ongoing.”

She said the luminescent plants currently “can primarily serve as decorative display pieces or ornamental night lights.”

However, Liu added, “Looking ahead, if we can significantly enhance the brightness and extend the duration of luminescence — and once safety is conclusively demonstrated — we could envision gardens or public spaces being softly illuminated at night by glowing plants.”

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