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Carbon Nanotube Towers Could Increase Solar Power
Vict0r writes "Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute have recently demonstrated a way to grow carbon nanotubes in towers. The article also discusses applications for solar cells." From the article: "Reflections off the Gothamesque towers would provide more opportunity for each photon of sunlight to interact with the p/n junction of the cell. That would increase the power output from PV cells of a given size, or allow cells to be made smaller while producing the same amount of power."
That would be cool if only that pesky photo din't get absorbed ;)
Even though this has only been used to generate towers that are microscopic in size, let the "and I bet this can be applied to beanstalks!" threads start in 3...2..1....
Because solar panels take energy from the light to produce electricity. You can only extract so much energy from a given photon.
Philosophy.
Because, as is the point, the solar panels ABSORB the light, not reflect it back. I don't have any hard numbers, but as PV cells are designed specifically to absorb sunlight, let's assume they do this pretty well. While some (let's say 20%) of a ray of sunlight is reflected back into the chamber, it would surely be caught by the next PV cell and absorbed wholly (unless, possibly, that PV cell is already working at maximum absorption, which, if is the case, negates the point of bothering to reflect in the first place.)
-9mm-
Carbon nanotubes are also all over the map these days so why not nanotubes and solar? I guess we'll have to wait a while until this becomes commercial though because I don't think carbon nanotubes can be scaled up very easily.
Oh yeah. Solar cell should work in the infrared! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of that?
Oh wait.. they have. And it simply can't be done with the solid-state solar cell technology of today. You can't have a bandgap that small and get a current.
And yes, of course there is a lot of research going on in this.
So, what is the point of your comment? Do you mean to say that you have a solution noone knows about, or are you bitching about the state of solar cells today because you think you know something noone else does?
No one has been able to grow vertical carbon nanotubes individually without support. Problem is, when the tubes get too long, they flop over. In these columns, the tubes help support each other.