Energy harvesting with biomaterials

The past decades have witnessed a new trend in the paradigm of materials science and engineering. There has been an increased importance of interdisciplinary research and convergence of multiple areas. Specifically, bioorganic materials have attracted increasing interest beyond their conventional area of applications. Due to their excellent biocompatibility and novel functionalities such as piezoelectric or photovoltaic effects, bioorganic materials have been extensively studied for energy harvesting from environmental sources. This chapter aims at providing a brief overview of advances in the application of electronically active bioorganic materials with the specific focus for using them as integral components of energy harvesting devices. In this context, discussions encompass specifically the peptide nanotubes, organic fibres produced by electrospinning and virus-based self-assembled molecules.