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Nanotech Solar Cell Minimizes Cost, Toxic Impact
bonch writes "Researches at Northwestern University have developed an inexpensive solar cell intended to solve the problems of current solar cell designs, such as high cost, low efficiency, and toxic production materials (abstract). Based on the Grätzel cell, the new cell uses millions of light-absorbing nanoparticles and delivers the highest conversion efficiency reported for a dye-sensitized solar cell."
More ground-breaking world-changing solar technology that will neither break ground or change the world because it will never make it to the consumer.
It's important to note though, that if you can make twice as much panel area for less money, then you are being more efficient.
At the end of the day they are aiming for two different efficiencies:
1. A lower $cost/output
2. A higher output/environmental-footprint ratio.
I've heard that currently the rule-of-thumb for Photo-Voltaic arrays is 4 years operation before they pay for themselves. Maybe this new technology will lower that significantly
"I split coffee all over my wife's nightie
The sun shines all day - when my car is in the underground car park - at work.
So home Solar and electric cars don't work together in any useful way.
Electric cars have a long way to go before they can replace combustion engines but your post doesn't really mean anything. The solar cells don't have to be on the car.
Before we get a lot of comments saying "what's so good about this?" it's actually pretty interesting. I did some undergraduate research with dye-sensitized solar cells (and am currently a graduate student researching inorganic semiconductors) and the basic thing you hear is that if you can get an organic solar cell to 10% efficient, they will be viable because they're so much cheaper than inorganics. While this may be true, the problem with dye-sensitized cells is, like they say in the paper, that they degrade in a rather short period of time. I saw this first-hand doing research on them - we had to make sure our batches were kept in darkness while making them otherwise the solution would degrade in a matter of hours, and after they were made I believe they only lasted a few months. If you can make 10% efficient organic solar cells that will last as long as inorganic ones (typically 20-30 years), you have a very attractive alternative to brittle, expensive and often toxic inorganics. I didn't see in the paper how long their new cells are supposed to last but anything you can do to make it more stable is going to help.
There are three factors that must converge to make it economically sensible to go solar electric.
1). Grid parity. This is when the amortized cost of power from the solar electric system costs less than power off the local grid.
2). When the cost per KWH per year stops dropping so rapidly. A corollary of Moore's law applies.
3). Storage. We need a low cost & efficient power storage system. Flywheel, hydro, battery, even hydrolysis. Lightweight batteries or hydrogen fuel cells that could be swapped into the car would be best.
At the current technology curve, it should be here within a decade in the sunny parts of the world.
Why would this be up to the company? There's still a grid out there. Maybe we just need more options for feeding it.
or every bit of news about solar arrays is pretty much the same - better efficiency, lower cost. I'm getting tired of reading the same thing every week.
To each his own...
Sometimes I think every bit of news about linux is pretty much the same - new experimental gui that will solve its desktop penetration problem. I'm getting tired of reading the same thing every week. ;^) ;^)
The first part wasn't directly comparing the new cells to Gratzel cells. They said that solar cells *in general* suffer from problems like low efficiency, high cost, short lifetime, and toxic and/or rare ingredients. Most designs suffer major drawbacks in at least one of these areas.
This new cell seems to address all of the above, while giving reasonable 10% efficiency. In particular, it avoids costly and energy-intensive crystalline silicon, and the most obscure element they mention is cesium, which isn't all that rare.
If they really are able to cheaply stamp long-lived cells out by spreading an electrolyte solution between a couple of plates, it could indeed become a big deal.