Tag Archives: SolarCells

All-carbon solar cell draws power from near-infrared light, our energy future is literally that much brighter

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Fully carbon solar cell can power up from infrared light, our future is literally that much brighter

What's this orange-like patch, you ask? It's a layer of carbon nanotubes on silicon, and it might just be instrumental to getting a lot more power out of solar cells than we're used to. Current solar power largely ignores near-infrared light and wastes about 40 percent of the potential energy it could harness. A mix of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs developed by MIT, however, can catch that near-infrared light without degrading like earlier composites. The all-carbon formula doesn't need to be thickly spread to do its work, and it simply lets visible light through -- it could layer on top of a traditional solar cell to catch many more of the sun's rays. Most of the challenge, as we often see for solar cells, is just a matter of improving the energy conversion rate. Provided the researchers can keep refining the project, we could be looking at a big leap in solar power efficiency with very little extra footprint, something we'd very much like to see on the roof of a hybrid sedan.

All-carbon solar cell draws power from near-infrared light, our energy future is literally that much brighter originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMIT Technology Review  | Email this | Comments

Naval researchers soak up the sun below sea level with special solar cells

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Naval researchers soak up the sun below sea level with special solar cells

Have you ever harbored delusions of living in an underwater city inhabited by the likes of Ariel or those aliens from The Abyss? Yeah, well keep dreaming, because this engineering feat won't necessarily lead to that (the fictional mer people part, that is). What it will pave the way for is a new means of harnessing the sun's rays below sea level to power submerged sensor systems and platforms. The research, carried out by a team of U.S. Naval scientists, forgoes traditional crystalline and amorphous silicon photovoltaic cells for those based on the more efficient gallium indium phosphide. The reason? Turns out those latter semiconductors are well-suited to absorbing photons in the blue / green spectrum -- precisely the wavelengths that diffused sunlight take on under water. Using this newer approach, the team's proven that about 7 watts of energy can be generated per square meter of these deployed cells at a depth of up to 9.1 meters (30 feet). Further refinements and testing are, naturally, on deck, but soon enough we may be looking at a whole new world of possibilities under the sea.

[Image courtesy Flickr]

Naval researchers soak up the sun below sea level with special solar cells originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 06:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNaval Research Laboratory  | Email this | Comments

USC develops printable liquid solar cells for flexible, low-cost panels

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USC develops printable liquid solar cells for flexible, low-cost panels

Solar cells are becoming more viable sources of energy -- and as they become more efficient, they're only getting smaller and cheaper to produce. Liquid nanocrystal cells are traditionally inefficient at converting sunlight into electricity, but by adding a synthetic ligand to help transmit currents, researchers at USC have improved their effectiveness. The advantage of these liquid solar cells? They're cheaper than single-crystal silicon wafer solutions, and they're also a shockingly minuscule four nanometers in size, meaning more than 250 billion could fit on the head of a pin. Moreover, they can be printed onto surfaces -- even plastic -- without melting. Ultimately, the goal of this research is to pave the way for ultra-flexible solar panels. However, the scientists are still experimenting with materials for constructing the nanocrystals, since the semiconductor cadmium selenide they've used thus far is too toxic for commercial use.

USC develops printable liquid solar cells for flexible, low-cost panels originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spinach-based solar cells get $90,000 development funds from EPA, Popeye delighted

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Spinach-based solar cells get $90,000 development funds from EPA, Popeye delightedA biohybrid solar panel that substitutes expensive silicon components for a spinach protein has been granted some substantial Phase II funding from the EPA. Students from the Vanderbilt School of Engineering managed to stand out from 44 other university teams vying for funding at the National Sustainable Design Expo held in Washington DC. The team's large-scale panel only ekes out a small amount of electricity from the photosynthetic proteins at the moment, but according to Professor Kane Jennings, the cash injection from the EPA will help achieve higher energy conversion ratios over the next few years. Perhaps you could try wrapping them up into giant 3D cubes, Professor.

[Thanks Brandon]

Spinach-based solar cells get $90,000 development funds from EPA, Popeye delighted originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceVanderbilt School of Engineering  | Email this | Comments

Researchers create incredibly thin solar cells flexible enough to wrap around a human hair

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You've probably heard that the sun is strong enough to power our planet many times over, but without a practical method of harnessing that energy, there's no way to take full advantage. An incredibly thin and light solar cell could go a long way to accomplishing that on a smaller scale, however, making the latest device from researchers from the University of Austria and the University of Tokyo a fairly significant discovery. Scientists were able to create an ultra-thin solar cell that measures just 1.9 micrometers thick -- roughly one-tenth the size of the next device. Not only is the sample slim -- composed of electrodes mounted on plastic foil, rather than glass -- it's also incredibly flexible, able to be wrapped around a single strand of human hair (which, believe it or not, is nearly 20 times thicker). The scalable cell could replace batteries in lighting, display and medical applications, and may be ready to be put to use in as few as five years. There's a bounty of physical measurement and efficiency data at the source link below, so grab those reading glasses and click on past the break.

Researchers create incredibly thin solar cells flexible enough to wrap around a human hair originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhysOrg  |  sourceNature Communications  | Email this | Comments