Not Transparent Aluminum, But Conductive Plastic

michaelmalak writes "Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have fabricated transparent, thin films capable of absorbing light and generating electric charge over a relatively large area. The material, described in the journal Chemistry of Materials (subscription required), could be used to develop transparent solar panels or even windows that absorb solar energy to generate electricity. The material consists of a semiconducting polymer doped with carbon-rich fullerenes."

Comments

Application: Skyscrapers

[suso]

Sounds like this would be great for skyscapers, where you have huge windows all the way up and direct sunlight for long periods of the day.

Re:Application: Skyscrapers

[Bigjeff5]

These would be great in windows, but I don't see why it should be limited to windows, since it's a coating that could be applied to all sorts of things.

A covering for housing siding, for example, or attached to roofing sheets. Something like this, if it ends up being cheap (and it should, it's a super simple process to make - the trick was getting the chemical solution right), would have a lot more applications than just in windows.

Cross your fingers, I say.

Coming soon

[pooh666]

to a manufacturer in China..

Re:Coming soon

[Pinky's Brain]

Don't worry, the US patent owners will earn a lot more profit on it than the Chinese (they don't give a damn about patents, but if they want to sell it in the US they need the license nonetheless).

The invisible man would be blind

[RevWaldo]

The more transparent it is, the less energy it can absorb. What level of efficiency can it achieve?

.

Re:The invisible man would be blind

[Raleel]

the question is, transparent to what, really. If it's opaque to everything _except_ human-visible light, that's still a pile of the spectrum and of energy.

Re:The invisible man would be blind

[Low Ranked Craig]

but there is a threshold of efficiency necessary to offset fixed installation costs.

This threshold will become lower as the costs of fossil fuel goes up. Assume for the sake of argument that the cost basis of solar tech like this doesn't change, the rising costs and shrinking supply of traditional sources will make things like this more attractive. Of course, it is likely that the costs for this tech will decrease over time...

Great idea

[RogueWarrior65]

This is the kind of implementation that actually makes sense. You don't need dedicated hardware or real estate to set it up. Granted northern exposure probably would work but put this stuff all over southern exposure windows in a whole city and tie it all onto the grid. It's akin to not using food crops for biofuels. Algae and switch grass make more sense.

Now the big key is getting the cost per kilowatt down where it's competitive with traditional power generation. And of course you really need a large scale storage system. I remember a Popular Science article about giant underground flywheels.

if its transparent how does it absorb?

[goombah99]

How can a transparent thing absorb a large fraction of the energy? This sounds like an oxymoron.

Re:What's the difference?

[znerk]

Not much, obviously. But, then again, what's the difference between a pile of dirt and rocks and a nuclear reactor?

Engineering :)

Well, that and the fact that one of them generates gobs of power, while the other just kinda sits there.