Harvard Grid Computing Project Discovers 20k Organic Photovoltaic Molecules

Lucas123 writes "In June, Harvard's Clean Energy Project plans to release to solar power developers a list of the top 20,000 organic compounds, any one of which could be used to make cheap, printable photovoltaic cells (PVCs). The CEP uses the computing resources of IBM's World Community Grid for the computational chemistry to find the best molecules for organic photovoltaics culled the list from about 7 million. About 6,000 computers are part of the project at any one time. If successful, the crowdsourcing-style project, which has been crunching data for the past two-plus years, could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall." The big thing here is that they've discovered a lot of organic molecules that have the potential for 10% or better conversion; roughly equivalent to the current best PV material, and twice as efficient as other available organic PV materials.

Comments

Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

Yes, it could lead to an organic compound that could do that. It could also lead to an organic compound like the one recently installed into BMWs that, when exposed to fire, converts in an aerosol of the deadliest acid known to man. It was marketed as a "green" alternative to existing refridgerants... and it was approved by the EPA. Twenty thousand molecules sounds impressive -- but the odds of finding one that meets safety requirements and is still effective isn't good. Pharmaceutical companies test thousands of compounds every year... and very, very few of those find a medical application. It's the same story here.

So yes, good first step. Good exploratory research. Don't get your hopes up.

Re:Organic compounds

[kromozone]

Are you referring to 2,3,3,3-Tetrafluoropropene? That HF production scenario involved Daimler spraying HFO-1234yf over a burning hot engine block. The conditions were tuned to disqualify it. There's a bit more to that story than the surface. German industry vs. US industry pushing different alternatives and each trying to warp the science their way. PVs aren't going to be aerosolized and sprayed over 500C engine blocks while mixed with compressor fluid. Considerably easier to predict the behavior of an organic molecule in this case.

Re:Organic compounds

[RobbieCrash]

Not to be that guy, but I wanted to know more about the acid thing, couldn't find it. It's actually Mercedes, BMW refused to put it in their cars. It also creates an incredibly toxic gas along side the acid.

More here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307265/EPA-nominee-tough-questions-approved-new-car-air-conditioner-refrigerant-caused-ENGINE-FIRES-Mercedes-Benz-tests.html

Re:Organic compounds

[modmans2ndcoming]

The problem with Pharma is they need to find a chemical that is effective against the pathogen/disease they are targeting and then make sure it is also efficiently absorbed by the body into the location that the disease/pathogen is so the dose they would need to give to a human are not toxic. The requirements for something like these PV compounds are far lower.

Re:Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

That HF production scenario involved Daimler spraying HFO-1234yf over a burning hot engine block.

Okay, am I the only one that thinks that putting a chemical that, when exposed to high heat or fire, converts to one that can cause death if it comes in contact with a patch of skin smaller than the palm of your hand for a few seconds in a car's engine compartment is a really dumb idea? In the event of a front-end collision, you've got shit spraying and leaking everywhere, smoke, flames, people dead, dying, or injured... and you're suggesting that we should introduce into an already inherently dangerous situation for first responders to walk into... the risk of exposure to an airborn acid that can kill them if they come in contact with it and likely wouldn't know at the time they did?

I'm sorry, but I'm with Congress on this: The woman that approved this was a flaming retard that, on no account, should be put in a position of authority over approving other compounds that could potentially save a company a few bucks at the expense of people's lives and health.

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have people dying because of the gasoline in the cars.

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

The woman that approved this was a flaming retard...

I see what you did there

Re:Organic compounds

[Qzukk]

The woman that approved this was a flaming retard

Flaming retard? Or one foot in the revolving door to whatever company invented the stuff?

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you provide a citation that doesn't come from a fear-mongering rag of an excuse for journalism?

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

...Pharmaceutical companies test thousands of compounds every year... and very, very few of those find a medical application. It's the same story here.

If you think for one second that the PV market (or even potential one) is anywhere near as corrupt as the pharmaceutical market, you are fucking delusional.

A sane person cannot even begin to fathom the reasons compounds make it out of medical testing and into medicine cabinets everywhere, creating revenue to the tune of trillions while creating millions of addicts to guarantee that revenue perpetually.

Sorry, but your weak-ass attempt at comparing these markets doesn't add up. Not even close.

Re:Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

Can you provide a citation that doesn't come from a fear-mongering rag of an excuse for journalism?

Sure can!

(trollface)

Re:Organic compounds

[DigiShaman]

Yes. Lets throw even more gasoline onto the fire. Great idea. I love it!

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as the current refrigerant we use will have equally BAD results if tested in this manner, I wouldn't go nailing anyone to any crosses just yet.

Don't believe me? Run out, buy a can of air duster, make sure you are in a room without much air circulation, turn the can upside down and light the resulting liquid spray on fire. Breath in REAL deep.*

They both make into Hydrogen Fluoride when burned, just add water for your dreaded hydrofluoric acid. Hey, wait a minute, aren't your lung tissues made up of lots of water?

To further make a point: The Dymler engineers mixed the HFO1234yf with compressor oil to increase its burning potential, then sprayed it over a large area on a hot engine block. In our experiment up top we ignited pure R-152a with nothing but a Bic lighter. Food for thought.

*Don't do this.

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

burning hot engine block

It's a good thing that those can't be found anywhere near cars!

Re:Organic compounds

[IMightB]

If you read the article, it appears that DuPont the chemical manufacturer is the one pushing it, because it's patents on R666 (or whatnot) are about to expire. it was approved via the SNAP process because based on Duponts documentation that it was supposedly safer for the environment. Mercedes own testing caught this flammability/poison issue and recalled every single car it made that used it. So far 2013 Cadillacs and Toyotas are still using it.

I'm not sure how much of this "approval" you wish to pin on whats-her-face that she actually had control over. Or whether she was just following the guidelines that congress told her to follow. There seems to be too much political spin either way to get a honest feel for this issue.

Re:Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

The requirements for something like these PV compounds are far lower.

Yes, there's no disagreement there. I'm just saying, creating a list of potentially useful molecules is only the first step in the search. Just like it is with "Pharma". Nobody's claiming otherwise...

Re:Organic compounds

[Bing Tsher E]

What a horrible metaphor. One foot in a revolving door generally gets chopped off, or at least results in a broken ankle.

Re:Organic compounds

[Electricity Likes Me]

Depends on concentrations. Water will kill you in high enough quantity. HF is bad, but how much was being produced? How much of this compound would be put in the car? Look hard enough and you'll find just about everything in an uncontrolled combustion product.

Re:Organic compounds

[gman003]

Now, I'm not particularly good with metric, nor am I particularly experienced with engine repair (having done nothing more complex than replacing a water pump), but I would think 500C is a bit unusual for an engine to operate at. That's roughly 900F, well above the melting point of, say, lead, and getting close to that of aluminum or magnesium.

According to some brief googling, the typical operating temperature for an engine is under 250F (120C), and gasoline auto-ignites at 280C (540F). So by the time your engine block has reached 500C, you should already have run a good ways away.

Not to mention that, just by the name, tetraflouropropene sounds like a hard chemical to aerosolize, which is also a condition needed for it to release HF.

So to recap:
You first need to get your engine block to a temperature far beyond what it's designed to handle. Then you need to be in a crash violent enough to aerosolize a decent-sized organic compound, *and* that aerosol has to land on that engine. Finally, all the above has to happen in sufficient quantities to produce a dangerous amount of HF gas, which I will note is not quite as holyfuckballswereallgonnadie lethal as you seem to think (it is very dangerous, and rightly feared, but you aren't going to die from a milliliter of it).

Yeah, I'm fine with that. Can't be much more dangerous than gasoline, which can kill you under far less unusual circumstances.

Re:Organic compounds

[bill_mcgonigle]

You first need to get your engine block to a temperature far beyond what it's designed to handle.

As I understood the point, they mixed this stuff with oil and then sprayed that mixture over the engine block. The hot engine ignited the oil and the burning oil reached the required temperature, presumably.

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

The woman that approved this was a flaming retard

okay, I can see where her lack of intelligence might matter, but what does her sexuality have to do with it?

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

You're such a queef.

Re:Organic compounds

[westlake]

Can you provide a citation that doesn't come from a fear-mongering rag of an excuse for journalism?

From an SAE presentation:

Risk per vehicle per operating hour

Risk of occupant/former occupant experiencing HF exposure above health based limits associated with an R1234yf ignition event: 3 x 10 -12 power

Risk of occupant being exposed to an open flame due to R1236yf ignition: 9 x 10 -14 power

Industry Evaluation of refrigerant HFO-1234yf

Re:Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

but I would think 500C is a bit unusual for an engine to operate at. That's roughly 900F, well above the melting point of, say, lead, and getting close to that of aluminum or magnesium.

If you pop open the hood and look along the sides of the engines, you'll notice that even though your block is aluminum, your exhaust manifold is not. The operating temperature of that will vary from 500 to 1000F for a V6 or V8. It will be higher if it is a rotary engine, or turbo-charged. A turbo-charger works by taking the pressure of the exhaust and using that to drive a turbine that compresses air and feeds it into the intake -- as a result, the exhaust will be at a much higher pressure, typically 9-12 PSI, and that results in the excess heat not dissipating as quickly. 1000F is easily attainable in a turbo-charged engine, like those typically found on the higher-end vehicles this refrigerant was/is installed in.

So by the time your engine block has reached 500C, you should already have run a good ways away.

As indicated earlier, the engine block is not the only source of heat under the hood, nor is it the hottest location. Also, the ignition temperature of gasoline can be much lower than 280C -- it can be as low as 232C (495F).

tetraflouropropene sounds like a hard chemical to aerosolize, which is also a condition needed for it to release HF.

It is in a closed loop refrigeration system. The typical pressures for the "high" side of a typical system is 200-350 PSI. Needless to say, a leak in the system would result in already-heated liquid that is designed to vaporize at 15-25 PSI being released into the atmosphere (at zero PSI)... which makes converting it to a gaseous state a simple matter of poking a hole somewhere in either loop; Though it would be somewhat more disasterous on the "high" side of the compressor.

So to recap:
Your understanding of physics is based on incorrect assumptions, and is incomplete as well.

Can't be much more dangerous than gasoline, which can kill you under far less unusual circumstances.

Yes, if you drink it I suppose. But many people have been doused in gasoline and unless they are lit on fire, find that it simply stinks and itches. And in many cases, people have survived being burned by gasoline spills that have caught fire. The same can not be said of anyone exposed to hydrofluoric acid. The CDC has a few things to say about it... namely that it can be used as a chemical weapon and is exceptionally toxic and fatal even in small amounts. Gasoline on the other hand...

Re:Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

Those numbers by themselves are useless in predicting the number of cases of exposure per year. Unfortunately, accurate numbers for the hours an average person drives are hard to come by, but by miles it's around 13,476 per year. Let's high-ball it for the sake of discussion and say the average speed of a motor vehicle is going to be 60 MPH. That means the average driver then spends 224.6 hours in their vehicle.

So the risk to the driver per year would be, er, about 1 in 13.3 million. "Coincidentally" that's about the same rate of you sustaining life-threatening injuries in a car accident, per year.

Or put another way... the statistics look safe, but the reality is... you've made it highly probable that after being trapped in your car, shit burning everywhere, you now have another hazard to face: Your air conditioner is now leaking a highly toxic gas which, if inhaled, could kill you and anyone who tries to rescue you. This particular failure mode will be common in a serious car accident.

Now, while you're sitting your car, chest impacted with the steering wheel, blood gushing from your nose, smoke and flames everywhere, I want you to think about this: Do I, a potential rescuer, want to risk walking into a fume of toxic gasses that the CDC says is very deadly and could be a very effective chemical weapon for terrorists... to save your ass?

Hangon... I'm still thinking about it.

Thinking.

Can you please stop screaming? Trying to think here, HELLLO.

Re:Organic compounds

[sFurbo]

That depends. How much HF will be produced over how long time in a typical crash? Is there any reason to assume that the concentration will ever be problematic?

Re:Organic compounds

[sFurbo]

It is in a closed loop refrigeration system. The typical pressures for the "high" side of a typical system is 200-350 PSI. Needless to say, a leak in the system would result in already-heated liquid that is designed to vaporize at 15-25 PSI being released into the atmosphere (at zero PSI)... which makes converting it to a gaseous state a simple matter of poking a hole somewhere in either loop;

So it will evaporate, not aerosolize?

Can't be much more dangerous than gasoline, which can kill you under far less unusual circumstances.

Yes, if you drink it I suppose. But many people have been doused in gasoline and unless they are lit on fire, find that it simply stinks and itches.

Let's keep the comparison apples to apples, and either note that being doused in a fluorohydrocarbon will probably do little more than to cool you down a bit; or that being doused in carbon monoxide is not exactly the start of a good night on the town, either.

And in many cases, people have survived being burned by gasoline spills that have caught fire.

We don't know how that compares to this compound, all we know is that, under the right circumstances, it can produce HF, while the same can be said of gasoline and CO.

Re:Organic compounds

[girlintraining]

So it will evaporate, not aerosolize?

Are you really this stupid? Do you not understand how gasses and liquids behave when subjected to sudden pressure changes? I can boil water by simply throwing it in a vaccum...

Let's keep the comparison apples to apples, and either note that being doused in a fluorohydrocarbon will probably do little more than to cool you down a bit; or that being doused in carbon monoxide is not exactly the start of a good night on the town, either.

Dude, it won't "cool you down" a bit. It will, upon being exposed to fire, pass through your skin without leaving any evidence of its passage, and thereupon start to chemically burn your body from the inside out.

We don't know how that compares to this compound, all we know is that, under the right circumstances, it can produce HF, while the same can be said of gasoline and CO.

Exposure to carbon monoxide or gasoline is readily treatable. If I expose you to hydrofloric acid... shooting you in the face would be a mercy compared to what you'll experience over the next (and last) few days of your life, as your body dies, piece by piece, cell by cell, and there is no pain medication strong enough to make you comfortable. You will be in screaming agony until you finally pass, days later, your skin grayed and slagging off, blood pooling and pouring out at the cracks whenever you move.

BUT PLEASE, TELL US ALL HOW IT'S JUST LIKE INHALING SOME CAR EXHAUST OR GETTING SPLASHED WITH GASOLINE.

Re:Organic compounds

[VortexCortex]

That HF production scenario involved Daimler spraying HFO-1234yf over a burning hot engine block.

Okay, am I the only one that thinks that putting a chemical that, when exposed to high heat or fire, converts to one that can cause death if it comes in contact with a patch of skin smaller than the palm of your hand for a few seconds in a car's engine compartment is a really dumb idea? In the event of a front-end collision, you've got shit spraying and leaking everywhere, smoke, flames, people dead, dying, or injured... and you're suggesting that we should introduce into an already inherently dangerous situation for first responders to walk into... the risk of exposure to an airborn acid that can kill them if they come in contact with it and likely wouldn't know at the time they did?

I'm sorry, but I'm with Congress on this: The woman that approved this was a flaming retard that, on no account, should be put in a position of authority over approving other compounds that could potentially save a company a few bucks at the expense of people's lives and health.

You sir are a fool. Consider that we tell the paramedics to just let the BMW owners die. Fucking pricks the lot of 'em anyway. Doing the world a favor and you call her a flaming retard? Get a check-up from the neck-up, mate.

Re:Organic compounds

[sFurbo]

Let's keep the comparison apples to apples, and either note that being doused in a fluorohydrocarbon will probably do little more than to cool you down a bit; or that being doused in carbon monoxide is not exactly the start of a good night on the town, either.

Dude, it won't "cool you down" a bit. It will, upon being exposed to fire, pass through your skin without leaving any evidence of its passage, and thereupon start to chemically burn your body from the inside out.

[Bold emphasis mine] Which wasn't what I said. You compared HF production to unburning gasoline, which I pointed out was not the fairest of comparisons, and gave two fairer comparisons.

Exposure to carbon monoxide or gasoline is readily treatable.

To the degree that it doesn't kill you, yes. But then, so is exposure to small amounts of HF (at least skin exposure, I imagine no good way to treat lung exposure exists): Rinsing with water for 12 hours removes most of it*. Admittedly not something I yearn to try, but very few things involved in a car crash is. It is not clear to me that this makes it significantly worse.

BUT PLEASE, TELL US ALL HOW IT'S JUST LIKE INHALING SOME CAR EXHAUST OR GETTING SPLASHED WITH GASOLINE.

I never said it was, I pointed out that, without knowing the amount of HF being produced in a typical crash, we have no way of evaluating whether it is a larger problem than gasoline already is. Do we know how much HF could be produced in a car crash, and over how long time? Do we know the concentration produced in the experiment, or is it only being reported as "being produced"?

*I know that injections of calcium gluconate was (is?) the standard. This is probably the worst cause of action, as calcium gluconate is a cell poison in its own right. Luckily, HF happens to be an excellent prophylaxis for this effect. Massaging with calcium gluconate gel probably does a slightly better job than rinsing with water does, if you can get people to massage the spot for 12 hours, which you can't.

Re:Organic compounds

[deimtee]

The chance of dying in a car accident are much higher than that.
in the US : approx 350M people / over 30K deaths/year = on the order of 1 in 10,000.

Re:Organic compounds

[lxs]

You may want to look in your kitchen cupboard and notice that bottle of bleach. Am I the only one who thinks that storing a compound that so easily produces a deadly war gas that strips the lining of your lungs when mixed with the contents of the bottle of cleaner next to it is a really dumb idea? Don't even get me started on the fool who thought that allowing cables carrying the same deadly electrical current that is used for electrocuting criminals into every home was a good idea.

Daily life is full of potentially deadly scenarios, and yet most of us still manage to make it to old age.

Re:Organic compounds

[Anonymous Coward]

So it will evaporate, not aerosolize?

Are you really this stupid? Do you not understand how gasses and liquids behave when subjected to sudden pressure changes? I can boil water by simply throwing it in a vaccum...

Yes, boil. Perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to call others stupid when you yourself don't know the difference between a gas and an aerosol... or how to spell vacuum.

P.S. Water is quite possibly the worst example to use if you're going to start spouting off about the behaviour of liquids in general.

Re:Organic compounds

[Inda]

Brief Googling is not needed. The water temperature for any car is about 90-95C and a lot of them have sensors and display dials showing this. The metal doesn't get much hotter than 95C.

Also, in modern cars, the fuel pump is disabled automatically after a crash.

I'm not an expect in car drive-trains either. Panels, sure. Everything else, meh.

Re:Organic compounds

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Sounds like you need better shoes.

Re:Organic compounds

[Bing Tsher E]

Steel-ankle boots? Even steel-toe shoes wouldn't help.

Am I the only one who read the...

[Nutria]

summary and thought polyvinyl chloride when reading "PVC"?

Re:Am I the only one who read the...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

No I thought the same thing.

Misleading statement in TFA

[Taco Cowboy]

... they've discovered a lot of organic molecules that have the potential for 10% or better conversion; roughly equivalent to the current best PV material

The current best PV materials have 20% or better conversion rate
 
Even the garden variety stuffs from China gets you about or above 15% conversion rate
 
I reckon the organic compounds are better, in the sense that they do not pollute the environment as much, but to that they are "equivalent" to the "best PV material" in terms of conversion rate, tastes a little bit funny to me

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[mspohr]

Nitpicking point taken.
However, the other part of the equation, cost, has the potential to make these very attractive compounds. If you could turn the side of your house into a solar panel for just the cost of paining it, this would be a very attractive value proposition. Even if the efficiency was only half that of a conventional PV panel, the cost per watt would be much lower.
Good to see this research.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[dwywit]

I'd be more worried about how long they last. What's the expected lifespan of organic molecules exposed to high levels of UV & heat for the majority of days over a 10 or 20-year period? Although if it's cheap enough, I guess you just strip and re-coat every 3-5 years.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Immerman]

Indeed. They're probably including labor costs, but still. One gallon of paint covers ~32m^2, * 2-6kWh/m^2/day insolation for a vertical equator-facing surface outside the tropics (relatively constant throughout the year, neglecting cloud cover and other shade sources) * 10% = 6-20kWh/day year round for a one-gallon paint job. Wouldn't have to last long at all to pay for itself.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Immerman]

Actually, depending on how you define best (do laboratory samples count?) I think they're past 40% now.

Still, equivalent within a small fraction of an order of magnitude, which is pretty impressive all things considered. IIRC chlorophyll is only 2%-3% efficient*, and it's had billions of years to optimize.

*real-world efficiency - laboratory eficiency is >40% for the narrow band of wavelengths it absorbs.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[djh101010]

Nitpicking, my ass. The difference between 10% and 17% is huge. Wake me when someone finds a mass-producable solar cell that has better than that efficiency, and decades of life at that output. Current (heh...) silicon PV cells have reached the point of a 6 year payback on investment, and where the rails to mount them on cost more than the panels they hold. Until someone finds a hypothetical breakthrough, anything less than this efficiency is a waste of time and money other than for pure research.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[djh101010]

Laboratory samples don't count until I can buy them in 1000 piece quantities. Right now, I can buy 17% efficient solar panels all day, every day, at $1.25 per watt. Until the other options improve on that, they're just a waste of investment.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[TheLink]

Maybe you can paint your wall cheaply with these compounds, but how would you get the electricity out?

I daresay doing it in a way where you actually get electricity would make the costs go up by a lot more. And depending on how its done it could make the efficiency go down too.

Merely painting your wall with crushed/blended solar panel material won't produce much usable power.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Electricity Likes Me]

Wouldn't just be paint though. You have to somehow paint a base conductor, the organic PV material, and a transparent top-electrode. You also have to segment and set up chains, otherwise the whole thing will kick out like 1V pretty inefficiently.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[The End Of Days]

Until the other options improve on that, they're just a waste of investment.

So I'm guessing you don't get investment

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[mspohr]

I'll take a wild guess and say they use wires.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Khyber]

Overall real world efficiency for chlorophyll can vary from 2% up to a whopping 15%, depending upon organism.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

And your guess is wrong. Go ahead, take a look at an existing PV cell; they use metal leads silkscreened onto the surface, not wires pasted onto the surface. I also happen to have a sample organic PV cell from the defunct startup Konarka in front of me, and it also does not use wires, but rather metallic contacts (probably silkscreened).

Any other hole you would like to dig today?

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[wagnerrp]

Real world efficiency is on the order of 30-35%, and that's for multi-junction GaAs cells that only see use in concentrated solar and space-based power systems. The best crystalline silicon units do in the 20-25% range, and amorphous silicon units do around 15%. Most plants run around 2-3% of conversion of sunlight into biomass, however sugar cane tops the list at close to 10%. Note that's not just chlorophyll activation, but the whole process of using that to drive ion pumps and produce storage molecules.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

they use metal leads silkscreened onto the surface

That is still a wire, just an more difficult and expensive kind of wire to make and attach.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the side of the house? How about every square inch of the exterior of a (every!?) home coupled with solar panel filmed windows. That might do something, and relatively inexpensively.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[RicktheBrick]

If the potential of these solar panel is so great, why can't they generate enough capital to purchase or rent time on a supercomputer? Why are they relying on 6,000 volunteers? I sure hope if something of monetary value comes out of this project, the volunteers are at least given something for their efforts.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[ACluk90]

It is much simpler. While having a lower conversion rate, they are just so incredibly cheap that you can easily get 10 times as many.
  To the point of pollution: they are really awesome. In fact around here (Switzerland) it is a quite common high school chemistry project to create such organic solar cells from TiO2 coated glass and tea leaves - quite a fun project.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary talks about the cost which would be comparable to paint, they didn't say the compound would actually be painted onto the wall. The summary mentions "printable photovoltaic cells". No one reads TFA, but at least read the summary.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

You are probably right but, why the rage?

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[The Master Control P]

That's only the best commercially available. Since we're talking about what are currently lab fantasies here, why not consider triple-junction cells which have acheived efficiencies north of 50% (and which will never be commercially viable outside of cost-is-no-object because they're as insanely expensive to make as you might imagine)?

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[dbIII]

3D printing with a layer of organic conductors put down first sounds ideal. Paint with microscopic masking and highly toxic conductive metallic paint floating around as a fine mist not so ideal.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

gallons... m^2 .... head asplode

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[dinfinity]

Some people see the advancement of mankind as something they want to contribute to, even if they don't instantly gain anything other than satisfaction from it.

I, for one, wouldn't mind if somebody makes stacks of money off my contributed CPU cycles. In fact, I'd applaud it if worldwide solar power production would increase because of it.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

because you're wrong. wrong on the internet.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

WIRES?! OH GOD, HOW WILL I DO THAT?

Do they sell wires in tins of paint?
Oddly enough, they probably actually could do. Paint rollers plus stencils for painting wire grids.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you are limited to a theoretical world of math. (But not abstract enough to be philosophy.)
Anyone who does actual work knows that there are a lot of implicit information everywhere.
His post contains an unmentioned constant for the thickness of paint and loss during application. You can take the values he gave you and calculate that constant and get the unit of the constant.
It might not always be true depending on viscosity of paint and curvature of the wall but it will always be more expensive to calculate the exact amount needed instead of using the rule of thumb.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[lxs]

I recommend that you use a dictionary to look up the word "volunteer" and note that the definition doesn't include "petty bastard who only works for personal gain" This will save everyone here the trouble of quoting the Princess bride to you.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[WaywardGeek]

10% is similar to the best non-crystalline cheap solar cells. You're thinking of the far more expensive type. I can't think of a single large-scale solar utility plant using crystalline silicon. Go read about First Solar. These are one of the few solar companies still making a profit. Their technology is so much cheaper than the more efficient arrays that literally half of the existing solar production plants will need to close down because they can't compete with First Solar.

Discovering new molecules for competing with First Solar would be huge for any company trying to make it in the utility scale solar space. However, it kills me every time I hear about solar panels or display technology which will be as cheap as paint. Sure, so long as you have zero defects that could cause a short over the area of an entire solar panel. That paint has to be applied in a clean room environment onto a substrate that's defect free. Then they have to be cut up, tested and binned, and merged into complete panels. Even the low-tech mechanical portion of the panel will dominate over the cost of paint. By the time you add up all the costs, the solar paint itself could cost $1,000/gallon and still not be a very significant cost. That's a good thing, because the paint has to be uniform at a nano-scale level. You don't just throw in cheap ingredients and put it in a paint mixer. It's certain to be far more expensive than ink-jet printer ink.

If someone comes up with a cheap way to get the paint molecules to self-assemble into defect free coatings, or self-repairing paint, then maybe I'll start to get excited. Still, this is a very awesome use of crowd sourced CPU power.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Muad'Dave]

I guess you just strip and re-coat every 3-5 years.

Never paint in the nude.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[RivenAleem]

I didn't read anywhere that the PV material was itself a paint, but that the cost per area was similar to that of paint. They could have said Carpet (though the value of carpet varies quite a bit)

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[TheCarp]

Reminds me of talking to an environmental cleanup specialist about an oil tank I had that leaked.
I asked if he had any idea what kind of total cost I was looking at, and his answer basically boiled down to, yes, we could study the spill and determine its extent.... but by the time we were done, it would cost a signficant fraction of what its likely to cost to clean up.
(though, for a much larger spill that cost/benefit would flip)

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[bluefoxlucid]

Lifespan, conversion-per-area, disposal costs (environmental impact etc). Wal-Mart generation likes cheap dollar price and prefers to throw away 10 things that cost $10 each than pay $50 for one thing that lasts 10 times as long, because $50 is a lot of money. Never mind the maintenance costs to replace stuff, the inefficiency, etc. I mean if they're 10% conversion rate, you need three times as much land as using a Sterling engine and parabolic reflector if you want a power generation facility--that's not cheap and impact is high, plus the more expensive engine-and-dish apparatuses need cleaning and polishing rather than outright replacement all the time (they're metal, teflon bearing rather than oil in the engine, and they'll last hundreds of years). Cheap panels on your house will provide less ROI and, while they may pay for themselves quicker, the ROI may be too low to justify the effort.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[bluefoxlucid]

"As cheap as paint" doesn't mean it is paint. Why are there so many flaming dumbasses here assuming this must be paintable solar cells because it compares the cost to the cost of paint? I can compare the cost of a loaf of bread to a blowjob from a $2 hooker, maybe the bread will give me a blowjob?

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Billy the Mountain]

OK, I just figured out how to do it and YW.

After the PVC paint is applied and dried, you have an inkjet printer modified to print on a broad flat surface. It prints a conductive ink pattern, solving the problem.

A refinement to enhance longevity and conductivity would be to have the print head be followed by a laser to sinter the metallic particles into a single monolithic conductor.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Immerman]

Nothing so complicated actually - around here paint is sold by the gallon, and the rule-of-thumb is 1 gallon = 350sq ft, which I then converted to real units for doing math.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Electricity Likes Me]

The punchline is you really want to panel it onto foil and then laminate over that or something I suppose. More like wall-paper I guess?

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

10% across that whole cycle is frigging awesome. Getting electricity earlier in the process would probably mean 15% efficiency, maybe even more.

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[cheesybagel]

First solar uses CdTe. Even CdTe and CIGS have better efficiency than 10%. Quoting Wikipedia: In February 2013, First Solar created a cell with an 18.7% efficiency.

The "cheap" solar panels from China used in housing installations are usually crystalline silicon so it is less rare than you seem to think.
 

Re:Misleading statement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

I can compare the cost of a loaf of bread to a blowjob from a $2 hooker, maybe the bread will give me a blowjob?

No, but if you give enough bread to a hooker...

(By the way...only $2? What, they take coupons? Or were you thinking Southeast Asia circa 1960-1980?)

Roughly equivalent my ass.

[__aaltlg1547]

Try half. High efficiency silicon cells are up to 20%.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[Colonel Korn]

Try half. High efficiency silicon cells are up to 20%.

The best are now sitting at 44% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff%28rev130307%29.jpg). That doesn't mean cheaper solar cells don't have lots of potential, but it does mean the editors here screwed up again. There are a few other errors in TFS as well, but this one really got me:

could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall."

Huh? So does this mean a PV coating will will have the same cost per area as paint. Personal expertise tells me no. Does it mean a postage stamp of PV coating will coast as much as a square meter of paint? That's actually more realistic for the midterm future, but the language in TFS shows such a basic lack of understanding of both numbers and units that it's impossible to tell what the editor or submitter really meant to say.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[viperidaenz]

Those 44% cells use an optical concentrator, aka magnifying glass, and require a substantial cooling system (concentrating the suns energy 418x creates a lot of heat)
They're also not commercially available, although neither are any cells using one of these 20,000 different molecules.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[ChrisMaple]

Non-concentrator cells are up to 37.8%.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[viperidaenz]

... in a lab environment

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[Khyber]

" but it does mean the editors here screwed up again."

No, it means the editors have pretty much lost any and all geek credential, plus have Alzheimer's, since we've had 20% silicon and high-efficiency cells for more than 5 years and we kept getting stories about them on slashdot.

Seriously, me shit-drunk could do a better job than every editor here combined.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[Khyber]

We haven't used optical concentrators for 40% cells in quite a while. Now we use focused-bandgap absorption and silicon nano-structures to act as waveguides, no concentrator needed.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, the optical concentrators in the last year or two that used waveguides still had lens arrays to couple light into the waveguide. And those wouldn't be capable of the high concentration levels needed for some of the higher end PV cells, where you need optical concentrators not just to increase the light level, but to fit the heat sinks for the cell into the array.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[viperidaenz]

You didn't look at that graph did you? The entire top line is triple junction PV cells with a concentrator.
The highest non-concentrator research is 37.8% from a four-junction cell.
If you're doing 40% without a concentrator the National Renewable Energy Laboratory probably wants to hear from you and you're beating the pants off Boeing Spectrolab and Sharp

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[hacker]

I think you probably meant to link to this copy of the file instead:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/PVeff(rev130307).jpg

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[Maury Markowitz]

We *sell* panels with cells over 20%. You can buy them anywhere. *Panel* efficiency is lower, typically 16 to 16.5%. That's because of the space between the cells, reflection off the glass, wiring losses, etc.

Panels are widely selling for about 70 cents a watt. Racking, inverter and wiring adds about the same amount. So even if we reduce the price of the panel by half, that will have an increasingly small effect on the installed cost. However, wiring and racking varies with the area of the system, so any decrease in arial efficiency increases the cost of these items.

It is going to be *very very* difficult for any low-effiency product to make any headway in the current market unless it eliminates racking and wiring. Solar shingles may be able to do this, but I have yet to see them get anywhere near the price points of conventional systems.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[Khyber]

Ahem... four-layer passthrough cells with optical waveguides (no lenses) built right onto the cells themselves, each layer harnessing a different bandgap. Top layer rolls red, second green, third blue, fourth UV. They sit on top of my research facility in the UK, and power it. Thank you.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[viperidaenz]

Still not 40%.

Re:Roughly equivalent my ass.

[__aaltlg1547]

Try half. High efficiency silicon cells are up to 20%.

The best are now sitting at 44% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff%28rev130307%29.jpg). That doesn't mean cheaper solar cells don't have lots of potential, but it does mean the editors here screwed up again. There are a few other errors in TFS as well, but this one really got me:

could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall."

Huh? So does this mean a PV coating will will have the same cost per area as paint. Personal expertise tells me no. Does it mean a postage stamp of PV coating will coast as much as a square meter of paint? That's actually more realistic for the midterm future, but the language in TFS shows such a basic lack of understanding of both numbers and units that it's impossible to tell what the editor or submitter really meant to say.

I was referring to commercially available cells. Heterojunction cells can get as high as you say under some conditions. I think the 44% is only achieved with a 1000X light concentrating lens. That's not a fair comparison. The 20ish percent is fair because it's commercial flat cells that don't suffer from the HARD TO USE problems that come with the types that only work well under concentrators.

one-meter square

[frovingslosh]

could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall

Another wasted effort. Who has a wall that is only one meter square? And if it costs as much as paint and covers one square meter, wouldn't it also cost as much as paint to cover a more useful size structure?

Re:one-meter square

[viperidaenz]

Perhaps it costs more than paint if you cover a smaller area as there may be fixed costs for things like power connections.

Re:one-meter square

[Anonymous Coward]

could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall

Another wasted effort. Who has a wall that is only one meter square? And if it costs as much as paint and covers one square meter, wouldn't it also cost as much as paint to cover a more useful size structure?

Are you trolling or are you fucking retarded?

Re:one-meter square

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that if the stuff costs the same amount as paint to cover a square meter, then it should cost the same as paint to cover 2 square meters, or 10 square meters, or n square meters. So it was stupid to even mention a unit of area in the blurb.

Re:one-meter square

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he's a fucking retarded pedant. The square meter is irrelevant to the comparison. A proper comparison would omit the square meter or plainly state that they cost the same for a given area. Pointing it out is pedantic. Not coming up with a proper restatement to go with your pedantry is retarded.

Re:one-meter square

[Anonymous Coward]

There are fixed costs to painting. For example, a one gallon can might cost about $25 and could be used to cover 120 m^2 of wall, but if you just want to paint a single square meter you still have to buy the whole can, and the brush. Not to mention supplies like masking tape ($3), overalls ($50), sand-paper ($5), and belt-sander ($200), and more. If you add this all up, I suspect that's how they came to the "same as to paint a one-square meter wall" figure.

Re:one-meter square

[jatoo]

The one square meter thing means for the same area, it's just a sensible way to express it. You don't say "my car is cheaper to run for the same distance travelled than yours," you say "I get more kilometres per litre."

Re:one-meter square

[BitZtream]

No its not a sensible way to express it.

If it costs the same for one square meter of PVC as it does for one square meter of paint then you just say ...

It costs the same as painting a wall.

Area is irrelevant if it costs the same for equal areas. Did you not take basic math in school? You don't throw in terms that have no useful meaning to the equation just for shits and giggles, which is whats being done here.

You might as well be retarded and say shit like:

It costs the same as paint on planet Earth!

With cars, we say 'it gets the better milage' because you aren't actually comparing cost, you're comparing fuel burn rate. Cost only comes into play when you include the variable/floating price for gasoline ... which you aren't doing in your car comparison. Its only cheaper if you also buy the same gasoline as me. If I use the cheap pump and you use the expensive pump at a different gas station, a considerable amount of 'milage' is lost at the pump from a cost perspective. This is why GM doesn't put how much it costs per mile to drive the car, they put miles per gallon on the window sticker.

If there are other costs that are different from paint based on area covered, such as the wiring costs that may be fixed regardless of surface area size or something like that, then again, its fucking retarded to compare to a specific size of painted area because you're making a comparison that is meaningless since we have no idea what the ratio is on the high or low side of it.

The one square meter thing makes it clear the person writing the story doesn't understand what they are talking about, and neither do you, which is why you're defending it.

Re:one-meter square

[jatoo]

With cars, we say 'it gets the better milage' because you aren't actually comparing cost

According to your argument we should say "it gets better distance for a given amount of fuel." Saying "mileage" incorporates the unit "mile" and incorporating a unit to denote a dimension is apparently something you are vehemently opposed to.

Saying "it costs the same as painting a wall" is less accurate than saying "it costs the same per unit area as paint."

I'll just ignore your ad hominem bullshit.

Re:Warning about impersonation and mod abuse... ap

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi! Let me be the first to welcome you to "The Internet!" My name is Anonymous Coward, but you can just call me "you," or "buddy," or "guy."

On "The Internet" we have a phenomenon known as "trolls" and these people, while occasionally entertaining, mainly spend their time intruding upon communities and eliciting emotional reactions from members in the service of carrying themselves into a receptive state where they can give themselves sexual pleasure using their hands and/or accoutrements. The worst thing you can do is reply to them in an emotionally charged manner, as you have done, since this gives them the satisfaction they seek. My recommendation for the future, and I sincerely hope this advice worms its way into your brain, is to fully ignore them until they go away. They really do!

Once again, welcome to "The Internet" and I hope your stay is fruitful and fun! Check out https://google.com/ to search out other things we have to offer. It truly is sensational! Just watch out for those trolls!

Excuse me

[viperidaenz]

While I go and file 20,000 patents...

Re:Excuse me

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if wasn't a given that there are a bunch of assorted lawyers, big businesses reps, patent trolls and uni researchers desparate for funding all falling over themselves to do just that then I could laugh at this...

Re:Excuse me

[hacker]

With all the money you're going to spend filing those patents, why not contribute to the research instead? $20M would help bring the industry a long way :)

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee031913.htm

Re:Excuse me

[Anonymous Coward]

Just file one patent with 20,000 claims. That's how they make software patents. "Claim #33, but using a sorted linked list instead of a hash table", etc, until billions of possible implementations have all been claimed.

Please compare apples to apples.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Please compare potentials to potentials, actuals to actuals. Comparing 10% potential of something with 10% actual of something that has some 40% or so potential is just plain wrong.

Its all about the colour..

[Spottywot]

If they can do it in Napalm Orange then I'm in.

Re:Warning about impersonation and mod abuse... ap

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow are you easily trollable. Can you reply to this one too?

Transparent conductors?

[Okian Warrior]

Don't PV panels require a transparent conductor as a top layer? Something that lets the light through and conducts away the electricity?

Once the side of your house is painted with this stuff, how would you gather the energy?

Cheap photovoltaic molecules is part of the problem. We still need a cheap transparent conductor to gather the generated energy.

PV with 40% conversion rates

[Taco Cowboy]

Actually, depending on how you define best (do laboratory samples count?) I think they're past 40% now

If you read closely on how they achieve the more than 40% efficiency you would see that they are not "1 sun" PV structure

Case in point, Solar Junction ( http://www.sj-solar.com/ ) came out with the "lattice matched 942X" which has 44% conversion rate

That "942X" denotes "942 suns", which means, the PV from Solar Junction is not flat panel type of PV, but rather, achieve its high efficiency with the use of focusing optics

Allow me to quote from http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/10/solar-junction-does-it-again-sets-new-cpv-efficiency-record

" ... Think of a magnifying glass. Basically, you have a very high performance solar cell that sits at the focal point of these focusing optics. The solar cell converts the photon flux into electrons, and power

Re:PV with 40% conversion rates

[Immerman]

Nothing wrong with that, it's not like they're conentrating 942 times the insolation on it and then measuring efficiency relative to normal insolation. In fact that may be a significant feature since mirrors/lenses are typically far cheaper than photovoltaics, but most photovoltaics can't survive extended exposure to that sort of power flux. So long as this stuff is notably less than 942x as expensive as common PVs it may be a good deal, at least for power plants where more complicated systems aren't nearly as much of an issue.

Misleading question with no answer in above post

[dbIII]

Nice little trick to ask a misleading question with no obviously no answer yet in above post. Nasty little trick putting in your own false answer "3-5 years" based on nothing. So I'm wondering, why do you hate scientific progress so much that you are trying to turn the kids against it? Is it just because it's solar and thus opposed to some ideology that has currently decided that overconsumption instead of thrift is it's new value? If so I suggest polluting a political site instead of a place where we are more interested in utility than ideology.

Re:Misleading question with no answer in above pos

[dwywit]

What's misleading about it? No-one knows how long a PV panel made with organic molecule technology will last, so how could I mislead anyone, especially when my point was couched as a query - "what's the expected lifespan....."
 
Conventional doped silicon PV has a warranty of ~20 years for ~80% of rated output - such as the ones on my roof. That is a reasonable comparison to make - even if "organic" PV doesn't last as long as current technology - say one-quarter of the time - if it costs a similar amount in proportion, then it's a fair comparison . BTW I've been off-grid for almost 20 years and I support any efforts to improve decentralised domestic energy generation. Make yourself a nice green tea and have a good lie down before you attack, next time.

Re:Warning about impersonation and mod abuse... ap

[cas2000]

you have no fucking idea what trollable is, you moron.

you think what you're doing is trolling? it's way too fucking lame for that, nor does it mean any of the actual criteria for trolling.

you're just being an unjustifiably arrogant and pretentious smug wanker....if you're still a teenager, your mum might think it's precociously cute (nobody else would).

Re:Misleading question with no answer in above pos

[dbIII]

Come on now - don't play dumb - you know what you are doing.
I'll explain the trick to the readers. It's misleading because it's bunching together a wide range of materials, thus it will be a very wide range of answers once they are determined (which will take time). To cap it all off the above poster supplies his own disparaging answer (when none are yet available) to imply little or no worth. In other words, a petty and childish trick demonstrating zero respect or interest in the subject matter, just some utter prick playing politics on a tech site.

Complaints

[tgillette24]

It's funny when you suggest that it could be as cheap as paint. Peoples responses are like "but how much cost in getting the power out??!". You could tell these jerks you could get free power from an aerosol can & sunshine & they'd still complain. Oh, wait...