After thorough consideration of proposals received in the Fall 2024 Seed Grant RFP, IConS chose two projects that align best with its mission to advance innovation in sensors and sensor systems, while providing unique interdisciplinary training for graduate student teams.
Awardee Co-PIs from the College of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Michael Dickey and Qingshan Wei, and from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Coby Schal (Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology), and Jean Ristaino (Department of Plant and Microbial Biology) collaborated on their proposal.
Their project, Ultrathin transparent electrodes for plant sensing, aims to establish a collaboration between engineers and plant biologists to develop and validate new sensor technologies for plants.
These sensors use ultrathin, transparent electrodes that conform to plant surfaces without interfering with their function. The project builds upon recent advancements in electrode fabrication, rendering them thinner, transparent, more robust, and more flexible – in other words, ideal for monitoring plants. It intends to demonstrate the sensors’ utility by measuring impedance and adhesion on tomato plants in response to environmental stimuli like touch, wind, water stress, and flame.
In this project, Dickey and Wei will combine their materials and sensors experience with Schal’s and Ristaino’s expertise in plant biology. The collaboration will include graduate students from both Colleges to create the technology with the ultimate goal of improving human and animal wearables, gas sensing, and optoelectronic technologies. Dickey noted, “We are excited to use our new transparent electrode technology to monitor the health of plants by collaborating with experts in plant biology. This is just the first step that can open up the door to many other applications.”
