Solar
Rearchers at Australia's CSIRO have built a gigantic printer that spits out solar cells at a rate of about ten metres a minute. The printer system uses existing technology to embed polymer solar cells (also known as organic solar cells) in thin sheets of plastic. The A3-sized panels are created by laying a liquid photovoltaic ink onto the thin, flexible plastic. According to the researchers, the technology is so simple that it could soon mean everyone has the ability to print their own solar panels at home. Project co-ordinator and University of Melbourne researcher, Dr David Jones, said that “We’re … Continue Reading
Scientists at Airlight Energy have joined IBM and the Swiss universities, ETH Zurich and Interstate University of Applied Sciences, to develop an affordable photovoltaic system that is capable of concentrating sunlight 2,000 times onto hundreds of one centimetre square PC cells – yielding high efficiency at low cost. The system uses a large parabolic dish made from a multitude of mirror facets. The dish is attached to a tracking system that determines the best angle based on the position of the sun. Once aligned, the sun’s rays reflect off the mirror onto triple-junction PV chips. On average, each chip can … Continue Reading
Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University researchers have developed efficient solar cells on cellulose nanocrystal substrates. The cellulose substrates and made from plants and can be easily recycled at the end of their life. To date, organic solar cells have usually been fabricated on glass or plastic. Neither of these is easy to recycle if, for example, they are broken during manufacture or installation. Cells on plastic have the further disadvantage of being petroleum-based. Paper substrates have been tried but have limited performance because of paper's rough surface and porosity. However, cellulose nanomaterials, being made from plants, are renewable … Continue Reading
Back in 2008, we wrote about the Sahara Forest Project – a plan to use solar power and seawater desalination to produce renewable energy, food and water in an area of desert. As shown in this video, the first fully operational pilot plant has now been built. A documentary about the people and progress of the Project is being made using Kickstarter funding.
Scientists at the University of California in Santa Barbara, led by Professor Martin Moskovits, have developed an entirely new method for converting sunlight into energy that splits water into hydrogen and oygen. According to Professor Moskovits "It is the first radically new and potentially workable alternative to semiconductor-based solar conversion devices to be developed in the past 70 years or so." In conventional PV systems, sunlight hits the surface of semiconductor material, one side of which is electron-rich, while the other side is not. The photon excites the electrons, causing them to leave their postions and create positively-charged "holes." The result … Continue Reading
A number of methods for predicting the rate of technological development have been developed. The most famous of these is Moore's Law, named after Intel's co-founder Gordon E. Moore who in 1965, wrote that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year and predicted that the trend would continue. The prediction has proved accurate ever since. Moore's Law has been applied to other forms of digital technology, which have been found to develop exponentially but at different rates. For example, hard disk storage has been found to half in cost every 1.1 years whereas RAM halves in … Continue Reading
Wysips, a company based in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France, has developed a photovoltaic film which can be built into a mobile phone, laptop or tablet screen and charge the battery from any artificial or natural light source. According to Wysips chief executive, Ludovic Deblois, “With 10 minutes in the sun you will be able to communicate for two minutes. To recharge completely you will have to expose it for six hours, so our technology is not necessarily for a full recharge but rather for an energy boost for specific applications. For example, for security if you have to make an … Continue Reading
Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have discovered that a class of materials, called oxide heterostructures, can be used to create a new kind of extremely efficient ultra-thin solar cell. Professor Karsten Held from the Institute for Solid State Physics at Vienna University of Technology explained that "Single atomic layers of different oxides are stacked, creating a material with electronic properties which are vastly different from the properties the individual oxides have on their own." The oxides used to create the material are actually isolators. If two appropriate types of isolators are stacked, the surfaces of the material become … Continue Reading
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a radically new design for a concentrator solar cell that, when irradiated from the side, generates solar conversion efficiencies that can exceed an ultra-efficient 40% conversion with intensities equal to 10,000 suns. Typically a concentrator solar cell consists of multiple layers of semiconductor materials stacked on on top of the other. These are connected in series and electricity is generated by the different materials as light of different wavelengths passes through them. These concentrators are complex and difficult to manufacture and have efficiency limitations. The new type of concentrator cell also … Continue Reading
Researchers at Princeton University have been able to increase the efficiency of the solar cells by 175% by using a nanostructured "sandwich" of metal and plastic that collects and traps light. The researchers believe that the technology will also increase the efficiency of conventional inorganic (silicon) solar collectors, but have not yet completed testing inorganic devices. Two of the main reasons that solar cells lose energy are light reflecting from the cell and the inability to fully capture light that enters the cell. The nanotechnology sandwich – called a "subwavelength plasmonic cavity" - allowed the team to create a solar … Continue Reading
Videos
Renewables News- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Aussie Researchers Make Efficient Solar Cells from Low-grade SiliconResearchers at the University of New South Wales have found a way to make very high efficiency solar cells out of cheap, low-grade silicon. It has been known for several decades that hydrogen atoms can be introduced into the atomic … Continue Reading → […]
- First Aussie “Hot Rocks” Power Plant Begins ProducingThe first power plant in Australia to produce electricity using an enhanced geothermal ("hot rocks") system has begun producing electricity in the far north-east of South Australia. The one-megawatt Habanero pilot plant near outback Innamincka is operated by Geodynamics. Geodynamics … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted Water
