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Altered Organism Triples Solar Cell Efficiency
An anonymous reader writes "By harnessing the shells of living organisms in the sea, microscopic algae called diatoms, engineers have tripled the efficiency of experimental dye-sensitized solar cells. The diatoms were fed a diet of titanium dioxide, the main ingredient for thin film solar cells, instead of their usual meal which is silica (silicon dioxide). As a result, their shells became photovoltaic when coated with dyes. The result is a thin-film dye-sensitized solar cell that is three times more efficient than those without the diatoms."
Lousy headline here. They haven't tripled the efficiency of the already best solar cells out there, but just some over variant that wasn't so very efficient to start with.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Titanium is expensive because the oxygen needs to be stripped off of the ore; titanium dioxide is far cheaper.
That doesn't mean that recycling paint is a bad idea, but the cost of titanium isn't going to drive it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
FTFA:
Dye-sensitized solar cells are favored as a thin-film material because they work in low-light conditions and are fabricated with environmentally benign materials compared to silicon solar cells. However, silicon cells have more than twice the efficiency, as much as 20 percent compared to less than 10 percent for dye-sensitized solar cells.
In the low-light environmentally safe field, these are the "normal" solar cells.
If you are looking for the replacement power plant cells (toxic, always aligned with the sun, typically out in the middle of a desert to avoid clouds) these aren't the cells you want.
But if these are intended to be mass marketed and put all over the place, this is the type you want.