Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a system that has the potential to kill two birds with one stone: large colourful noise barriers for highways that also generate solar energy.

“They are basically large luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs),” Michael Debije, from the university’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, told CNBC via email.

“That is, they are large sheets of plastic filled with a fluorescent dye,” he added.

Heijmans

Debije said that the fluorescent dye absorbs part of what he called, “the incoming solar spectrum,” with the dyes re-emitting this light at a longer wavelength.

Debije went on to explain that a process called ‘total internal reflection’ enables a large part of sunlight to be trapped within the plastic plate.

Read the rest at CNBC.com