By Michael Graham Richard
23 April 2013(TreeHugger) – Concentrating the sun's ray onto solar photovoltaic (PV) modules requires walking the fine line between optimizing power output and not literally melting your very expensive super-high-efficiency solar cells. A team led by IBM Research seems to have found a way to push back the line. They have created a High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system that is capable of concentrating the power of 2,000 suns onto hundreds of triple junction photovoltaic chips measuring a single square centimeter each (they even claim to be able to keep temperatures safe up to 5,000x). The trick is that each solar PV cell is cooled using technology developed for supercomputers; microchannels only a few tens of micrometers in width pipe liquid coolant in and extract heat "10 times more effective than with passive air cooling."
The beauty is that this heat is not just thrown away. This system gets useful work out of it. So while the PV modules are 30%+ efficient at converting the sun's light into electricity, another 50% of the sun's energy is captured as heat and can then be used to do things like thermal water desalination and adsorption cooling. This means that the system is capable of converting around 80% of the collected solar energy into useable energy (though the electricity is of course more useful than the thermal energy). [more]
Thursday, May 2, 2013
IBM solar collector combines solar PV with solar thermal to reach 80% conversion efficiency, magnifies sun by 2,000x, costs 3x less than similar systems
Sunday, October 30, 2011
World’s first vertical forest under construction in Milan
This design is close to the full realization of an idea that occurred to me around a decade ago, as I pondered how to house 10 billion humans and still have a biosphere. I built a genetic algorithm framework for modeling these kinds of structures, which was used in Gennaro Senatore: Morphogenesis of Spatial Configurations. It’s amazing to see these kinds of structures actually being built; it’s as though the 21st century has finally arrived.
By Diane Pham
16 October 2011We've reported extensively on green vertical towers that integrate plant life into their facade, but unlike many of those designs, here's one that goes beyond being a mere concept. Designed by Stefano Boeri - architect, academic and former editor of design and architecture magazine Domus - his Bosco Verticale is a towering 27-story structure, currently under construction in Milan, Italy. Once complete, the tower will be home to the world's first vertical forest.
The Bosco Verticale is a system that optimizes, recuperates, and produces energy. Covered in plant life, the building aids in balancing the microclimate and in filtering the dust particles contained in the urban environment (Milan is one of the most polluted cities in Europe). The diversity of the plants and their characteristics produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, producing oxygen and protect the building from radiation and acoustic pollution. This not only improves the quality of living spaces, but gives way to dramatic energy savings year round.
Each apartment in the building will have a balcony planted with trees that are able to respond to the city’s weather — shade will be provided within the summer, while also filtering city pollution; and in the winter the bare trees will allow sunlight to permeate through the spaces. Plant irrigation will be supported through the filtering and reuse of the greywater produced by the building. Additionally, Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems will further promote the tower’s self-sufficiency.
The design of the Bosco Verticale is a response to both urban sprawl and the disappearance of nature from our lives and on the landscape. The architect notes that if the units were to be constructed unstacked as stand-alone units across a single surface, the project would require 50,000 square meters of land, and 10,000 square meters of woodland. Bosco Verticale is the first offer in his proposed BioMilano, which envisions a green belt created around the city to incorporate 60 abandoned farms on the outskirts of the city to be revitalized for community use.
Bosco Verticale in Milan Will Be the World’s First Vertical Forest
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Japan ‘plans solar panels for all new buildings'
TOKYO,’May 22 (AFP) — Japan is considering a plan that would make it compulsory for all new buildings and houses to come fitted with solar panels by 2030, a business daily said Sunday.
The plan, expected to be unveiled at the upcoming G8 Summit in France, aims to show Japan's resolve to encourage technological innovation and promote the wider use of renewable energy, the Nikkei daily said.
Japan has reeled from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear crisis they triggered as it battles to stabilise the crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant.
On Thursday, the first day of the two-day summit in Deauville, France, Prime Minister Naoto Kan is expected to announce Japan's intention to continue operating nuclear plants after confirming their safety, the Nikkei said without citing sources.
But he is also expected to unveil a plan to step up efforts to push renewable energy and energy conservation.
Kan believes that the installation of solar panels would help Japan realise such goals, the Nikkei said.
He hopes that technological innovation will drastically bring down costs of solar power generation and thereby make the use of renewable energy more widespread, it said.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Renewable energy can power the world, says landmark IPCC study
UN's climate change science body says renewables supply, particularly solar power, can meet global demand
By Fiona Harvey, www.guardian.co.uk
9 May 2011Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power, according to a landmark report published on Monday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world's leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations, said that if the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible.
Investing in renewables to the extent needed would cost only about 1% of global GDP annually, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.
Renewable energy is already growing fast – of the 300 gigawatts of new electricity generation capacity added globally between 2008 and 2009, about 140GW came from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, according to the report.
The investment that will be needed to meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets demanded by scientists is likely to amount to about $5trn in the next decade, rising to $7trn from 2021 to 2030. …
Renewable energy can power the world, says landmark IPCC study
Saturday, December 25, 2010
New solar fuel machine ‘mimics plant life’
By Neil Bowdler, Science reporter, BBC News
23 December 2010 Last updated at 14:11 ETA prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun's energy into fuel.
The machine uses the Sun's rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported.
Conventional photovoltaic panels must use the electricity they generate in situ, and cannot deliver power at night.
Details are published in the journal Science.
The prototype, which was devised by researchers in the US and Switzerland, uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder lined with cerium oxide, also known as ceria.
Ceria has a natural propensity to exhale oxygen as it heats up and inhale it as it cools down.
If as in the prototype, carbon dioxide and/or water are pumped into the vessel, the ceria will rapidly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, creating hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide.
Hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, for example, while a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to create "syngas" for fuel. …
The prototype is grossly inefficient, the fuel created harnessing only between 0.7% and 0.8% of the solar energy taken into the vessel.
Most of the energy is lost through heat loss through the reactor's wall or through the re-radiation of sunlight back through the device's aperture.
But the researchers are confident that efficiency rates of up to 19% can be achieved through better insulation and smaller apertures. Such efficiency rates, they say, could make for a viable commercial device. …
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The tortoise and the solar plant
By Sarah McBride
October 30, 2010Mercy Vaughn crouches over a young tortoise peeking out from its burrow near a creosote bush in California's Mojave Desert.
The area is home to rare species, including the threatened desert tortoise. But a giant solar plant is under construction in the vast wilderness area.
To help save the animal, the company building the plant, BrightSource Energy, had to agree to a lot of conditions, including reptile relocation.
Vaughn, a biologist from Texas, and her colleague Peter Woodman are leading a team of 50 biologists hired to survey the site over and over before construction begins. They have to keep track of every single tortoise.
"This is one that was walking down the middle of the road when it was spotted by one of the monitors," Woodman says. "Luckily, we've got a radio transmitter on it now."
He's looking at an adult female tortoise; she's about the size of a dinner plate, and the transmitter is glued to her shell. It almost looks like a stray twig. …
The tortoises can't stay where construction crews might harm them, so the biologists are moving them to pens to ride out the desert winter. In the spring, they'll try relocating them to the wild.
BrightSource is spending more than $40 million to protect plants and wildlife. That includes buying acres of land to keep as nature preserves. …
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Techo-leapfrogging at its best: 2,000 Indian villages skip fossil fuels, get first electricity from solar
By Matthew McDermott, New York, NY
09.22.10If you ever need a great example of technological leapfrogging in practice, here it is: In the Indian state of Orissa, the state government has decided to electrify approximately an additional 2,000 villages by March 2012. But rather than hook them up to coal-fired power plants, it will be using decentralized solar power. Biomass, wind power and a variety of small-scale hydropower projects are also in the mix.
Express Buzz reports that currently there are 395 villages powered through solar, with an additional 205 to be completed by the end of the year. Detailed reports to deploy solar to at the remaining villages are being drawn up.
Further renewable energy development in Orissa includes 118 MW of biomass plants, with 20 MW of that to be completed soon. Two wind power projects, 150 MW in size are in the works, with surveys for 22 more locations underway. Micro, mini and small-scale hydropower projects are also planned for deliver an additional 300 MW. …
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
New solar energy conversion process discovered by Stanford engineers could revamp solar power production
BY LOUIS BERGERON
Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil.
Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels – which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises – the new process excels at higher temperatures.
Called "photon enhanced thermionic emission," or PETE, the process promises to surpass the efficiency of existing photovoltaic and thermal conversion technologies.
"This is really a conceptual breakthrough, a new energy conversion process, not just a new material or a slightly different tweak," said Nick Melosh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research group. "It is actually something fundamentally different about how you can harvest energy."
And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable.
Melosh is senior author of a paper describing the tests the researchers conducted. It was published online Aug. 1 in Nature Materials.
"Just demonstrating that the process worked was a big deal," Melosh said. "And we showed this physical mechanism does exist; it works as advertised." …
"What we've demonstrated is a new physical process that is not based on standard photovoltaic mechanisms, but can give you a photovoltaic-like response at very high temperatures," Melosh said. "In fact, it works better at higher temperatures. The higher the better." …
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Solar powered bike sharing system proposed for Copenhagen
Already one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world, Copenhagen is used as the setting for an interesting conceptual bike sharing system. Termed “Bicyclus” by Italian designer Stefano Marchetto, the new eco-friendly plan would reuse some 8,000 bikes that are abandoned every year and further facilitate easier commutes for residents through the city.
The Bicyclus idea intends to upgrade the city’s current world-famous bike system run by Bycykelservice. Since 1995, the city has systematically expanded the number and accessibility of bicycle lanes and routes, making bicycle travel more efficient than using cars or buses.
With Bicyclus, each recycled bike would receive a touchscreen display with information about the city, while the on board computer system would also be equipped to allow Bicyclus bikers to interact. …
A Solar Powered Bike Sharing System
Friday, July 23, 2010
Will ‘solar trees’ sprout in parking lots?
By MATTHEW L. WALD
July 14, 2010, 7:27 amPart of the fine print in solar power systems is that whatever wattage number is quoted, it is usually “peak watts,’’ or the amount of electricity that the panel would deliver when the sun is directly overhead. For the rest of the daylight hours, the output is lower; a graph showing minute-by-minute production resembles a sharp mountain peak.
One way to do better is to mount the panel on a metal backbone and let it tilt over the course of the day, keeping itself pointed towards the sun from sunrise to sunset. This is called a single-axis tracker. Better yet is a two-axis tracker, which also adjusts the angle to compensate for how high the sun is in the sky. Then the graph showing output would resemble a plateau. But all of this adds cost.
Envision Solar, a San Diego company, has found a niche in the solar world by building shaded parking areas with solar panels fixed to the roofs. The panels do not track the sun, but they are angled to take advantage of it: they are usually tilted to the south.
But parking lot designers seldom take solar orientation into account when painting the stripes for the parking spaces; the company has sometimes had to realign the parking stalls so that the roofs will have good solar orientation, with the rows of cars running east-west. In the ideal configuration, said Robert Noble, an architect who founded the firm and is its chief executive, the sun rises in the windshield and sets in the back window, or vice versa.
Now Envision is trying out another idea. On Wednesday, it will announce that with financing from the state of Pennsylvania, it is trying out a “solar tree” mounted on a gimbal, a mechanical device with rings mounted on axes at right angles to each other. …
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Google officially enters the energy market
By Ariel Schwartz
Tue Jul 20, 2010Google's entrance into the energy market has been a long time coming. Earlier this year, the Internet giant formed an energy subsidiary, dubbed "Google Energy", and soon afterwards Google announced that its first direct investment in utility-scale clean energy would go towards NextEra Energy Resources' wind energy project in North Dakota to the tune of $38.8 million. Now Google reports that it has entered into a 20-year green Power Purchase Agreement with NextEra--and Google plans to sell some of that wind power back to the grid for Renewable Energy Certificates. In other words, Google-owned resources may soon be keeping your lights on.
Beginning on July 30, NextEra will supply Google with 114 megawatts of wind generation from the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa. Google will continue to buy the energy from NextEra at an undisclosed rate for the next 20 years. But according to Google, the deal is a bit complicated: …
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Nokero debuts rugged, rainproof N100 solar light bulb for the developing world
By Darren Murph posted Jun 9th 2010 2:31PM
Oh, sure -- the world has plenty of those ritzy LED light bulbs to choose from, but how's about using the ultimate light source to create... even more light! That's exactly what Nokero is setting out to accomplish with its N100, which is being christened the "world's first" solar light bulb. Designed specifically for use in developing nations where continual electricity is a mere pipe dream, this bulb is housed in an ultra-rugged, rainproof enclosure that can provide around four hours of light when fully charged; if you leave it in the sun all day, it'll harness enough juice to provide illumination for around two hours. The unit itself is constructed from impact resistant plastic and includes a foursome of solar panels, five LEDs and a replaceable, nickel metal hydride battery that's said to last two years. The company informed us that these will run you around $15 if purchased one at a time, though the goal is to sell 'em in bulk for around $6 apiece and have them delivered to rural parts of India, Africa and possibly District 9. Go on and get schooled by heading past the break and clicking play. …
Nokero debuts rugged, rainproof N100 solar light bulb for developing worlds
Monday, April 12, 2010
Southern California Edison blankets roofs with solar panels
By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
FONTANA, Calif. — The view from a warehouse roof here is consistent. In every direction, there are blocks and blocks of warehouse roofs baking in the Southern California sun. Rather than letting them sit bare, a California utility hopes to blanket roofs like these with solar panels to produce enough electricity to power 162,000 homes.
Southern California Edison has installed solar on two warehouse roofs and is working on another in the Los Angeles region. The utility expects to do 100 to 125 more, totaling about 1.5 square miles of roof space in the next five years.
The program, in which the utility owns the solar, is the largest of its kind in the nation, not surprising since California is the No. 1 solar market. But utilities in other states, including North Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona and New Jersey, have smaller plans to rent roofs for their own mini-solar-power plants, too.
The phenomenon, while in its infancy, presents another way for solar to spread in a bigger way than it has historically done when home and business owners put solar on roofs. The deep-pocketed utilities are planning bigger installations. Yet the systems don't consume green land or require new power-transmission links, as do some massive solar farms planned for deserts in California, Arizona and Nevada. As such, rooftop solar is likely to face fewer environmental hurdles than the farms and can get permits and be built much faster. …
Southern California Edison blankets roofs with solar panels
Sunday, April 11, 2010
MIT researchers harness viruses to split water
Crucial step toward turning water into hydrogen fuel
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A team of MIT researchers has found a novel way to mimic the process by which plants use the power of sunlight to split water and make chemical fuel to power their growth. In this case, the team used a modified virus as a kind of biological scaffold that can assemble the nanoscale components needed to split a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Splitting water is one way to solve the basic problem of solar energy: It's only available when the sun shines. By using sunlight to make hydrogen from water, the hydrogen can then be stored and used at any time to generate electricity using a fuel cell, or to make liquid fuels (or be used directly) for cars and trucks.
Other researchers have made systems that use electricity, which can be provided by solar panels, to split water molecules, but the new biologically based system skips the intermediate steps and uses sunlight to power the reaction directly. The advance is described in a paper published on April 11 in Nature Nanotechnology.
The team, led by Angela Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, engineered a common, harmless bacterial virus called M13 so that it would attract and bind with molecules of a catalyst (the team used iridium oxide) and a biological pigment (zinc porphyrins). The viruses became wire-like devices that could very efficiently split the oxygen from water molecules.
Over time, however, the virus-wires would clump together and lose their effectiveness, so the researchers added an extra step: encapsulating them in a microgel matrix, so they maintained their uniform arrangement and kept their stability and efficiency.
While hydrogen obtained from water is the gas that would be used as a fuel, the splitting of oxygen from water is the more technically challenging "half-reaction" in the process, Belcher explains, so her team focused on this part. Plants and cyanobacteria (also called blue-green algae), she says, "have evolved highly organized photosynthetic systems for the efficient oxidation of water." Other researchers have tried to use the photosynthetic parts of plants directly for harnessing sunlight, but these materials can have structural stability issues.
Belcher decided that instead of borrowing plants' components, she would borrow their methods. In plant cells, natural pigments are used to absorb sunlight, while catalysts then promote the water-splitting reaction. That's the process Belcher and her team, including doctoral student Yoon Sung Nam, the lead author of the new paper, decided to imitate.
In the team's system, the viruses simply act as a kind of scaffolding, causing the pigments and catalysts to line up with the right kind of spacing to trigger the water-splitting reaction. The role of the pigments is "to act as an antenna to capture the light," Belcher explains, "and then transfer the energy down the length of the virus, like a wire. The virus is a very efficient harvester of light, with these porphyrins attached.
"We use components people have used before," she adds, "but we use biology to organize them for us, so you get better efficiency." …
Friday, April 2, 2010
Researchers conclude 100 per cent renewable electricity supply is feasible
European report "debunks" criticism of renewable energy supplies as unreliable and costly
By James Murray, BusinessGreen, 29 Mar 2010
Europe could generate all the electricity it needs from renewable sources by the middle of the century, according to a major new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that rejects concerns about the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources.
The report – which was contributed to by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the European Climate Forum – concludes it is technically feasible to produce a pan-continental supersmart grid powered by solar farms in North Africa, hydro electric plants in Scandinavia and the European Alps, onshore and offshore wind farms in the Baltic and North Sea, marine energy, and biomass power facilities.
Richard Gledhill, partner for sustainability and climate change at PwC, said the report "debunks some of the conventional criticisms of large-scale renewables" by demonstrating how "geographic and technological diversification can help address cost and security of supply concerns".
Significantly, the report predicts that the rapid deployment of renewable energy capacity at scale will bring down the cost of low-carbon technologies, resulting in energy that is cost competitive and can provide affordable electricity across the region.
The report accepts that nuclear power and carbon capture and storage are also likely to play a central role in decarbonising Europe's electricity supply, but argues that renewable energy could meet all the continent's electricity requirements if need be. "The technological capability for developing renewable forms of power generation is already in place, or emerging and envisaged, and the economics of the key technologies is improving, albeit in a difficult financing environment," it states.
The study includes a policy road map which outlines how Europe's leaders could transition away from fossil fuel-based power over the next four decades. ...
Researchers conclude 100 per cent renewable electricity supply is feasible
Thursday, February 18, 2010
One giant step closer to fuel-from-sunlight by Joule Biotechnologies
Written by Tina Casey, Published on February 15th, 2010
Joule Biotechnologies, Inc. has just announced that a lease agreement has been signed for a new facility in Leander, Texas, which will serve as a pilot plant to develop the company’s solar powered system for producing ethanol and other biofuels. The energy efficient process is based on photosynthetic microorganisms and it operates without the use of conventional biomass or algae biofuel processes.
CleanTechnica and Gas 2.0 have been eagerly following Joule’s progress, and the company has already produced ethanol and diesel at a lab scale rate. It plans to start ethanol production this year at the pilot plant, with diesel to follow early next year. Once operating at full scale, the facility has the potential to deliver at the rate of 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre yearly, and 15,000 gallons of diesel. That could be the tip of the iceberg, because the same process can also yield a variety of high-value chemicals in addition to biofuels.
Joule prefers to call its system “solar fuel,” and rightfully so. The heart of the process is the company’s proprietary SolarConverter, which contains photosynthetic organisms in a bath of brackish water and nutrients, with carbon dioxide fed in. While the concept is similar to producing algae biofuel, there are several significant twists. The organisms are not algae, they are bio-engineered proprietary organisms that produce and secrete fuel without the need for costly fermentation processes, extraction or refinement processes. The system also skips the need to collect and transport large quantities of biomass. …
One Giant Step Closer to Fuel-from-Sunlight by Joule Biotechnologies
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Seawater greenhouses to bring life to the desert
The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grown
By Alok Jha, green technology correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 September 2008 15.50 BST
Vast greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.
The Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and without the need to dig wells for fresh water, which has depleted acquifers in many parts of the world.
The team includes one of the lead architects behind Cornwall's Eden project and demonstration plants are already running in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Plants cannot grow in deserts because of the extreme temperatures and lack of nutrients and water. Charlie Paton, one of the Sahara Forest team and the inventor of the seawater greenhouse concept, said his technology was a proven way to transform arid environments.
"Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point," said Paton. Above a particular temperature, the amount of water lost through the holes in its leaves, called stomata, gets so large that a plant will shut down photosynthesis and cannot grow.
The greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the damp, cool air through the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature by about 15C compared to that outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, the water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, while the rest can be used for the essential task of cleaning the solar mirrors.
"So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature," said Paton. "The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well." …
Seawater greenhouses to bring life to the desert
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sun-powered water splitter makes hydrogen tirelessly
Nanoscale dots can absorb sunlight and release hydrogen from water, without damage from bleaching
13:59 11 February 2010 by Colin Barras
Sunlight + water = hydrogen gas, in a new technique that can convert 60 per cent of sunlight energy absorbed by an electrode into the inflammable fuel.
To generate the gas Thomas Nann and colleagues at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, dip a gold electrode with a special coating into water and expose it to light. clusters of indium phosphide 5 nanometres wide on its surface absorb incoming photons and pass electrons bearing their energy on to clusters of a sulphurous iron compound.
This material combines those electrons with protons from the water to form gaseous hydrogen. A second electrode – plain platinum this time – is needed to complete the circuit electrochemically.
Organic molecules have been used before to perform the same feat. But they are quickly bleached by the sunlight they are collecting, rendering them inefficient after a few weeks.
The inorganic materials used in the University of East Anglia's system are more resilient. Their first generation proof of concept is "a major breakthrough" in the field, they say, thanks to its efficiency of over 60 per cent and ability to survive sunlight for two weeks without any degradation of performance.
"In fact the 60 per cent figure is probably a worst-case scenario," says Nann. "This is still a preliminary study." …
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Researchers make breakthrough in transparent spray-on solar
New Energy Technologies–who introduced us to harvesting energy from roadways–has developed transparent solar cells which can be sprayed onto any glass surface.
How? They successfully removed all metals from the solar cell. A huge challenge as the metal component in the cells act as a negative ‘polar contact.’ And they replaced those metals with an eco-friendly compound: one you can see through! …
Researchers Make Breakthrough in Transparent Spray-On Solar
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Solar cells made through oil-and-water 'self-assembly'
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC NewsResearchers have demonstrated a simple, cheap way to create self-assembling electronic devices using a property crucial to salad dressings.
It uses the fact that oil- and water-based liquids do not mix, forming devices from components that align along the boundary between the two.
The idea joins a raft of approaches toward self-assembly, but lends itself particularly well to small components.
The work is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Crucially, it could allow the large-scale assembly of high-quality electronic components on materials of just about any type, in contrast to "inkjet printed" electronics or some previous self-assembly techniques. …
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