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'Moth Eye' Graphene Breakthrough Could Create Indoor Solar Cells (newsweek.com)
A scientific breakthrough with the "wonder material" graphene has opened up the possibility of indoor solar cells that capture energy from indirect sunlight, as well as ambient energy from household devices. Researchers from the University of Surrey in the U.K. studied the eyes of moths to create sheets of graphene that they claim is the most light-absorbent material ever created. "We realized that the moth's eye works in a particular way that traps electromagnetic waves very efficiently," Professor Ravi Silva, head of the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, tells Newsweek. "As a result of our studies, we've been able to mimic the surface of a moth's eye and create an amazingly thin, efficient, light-absorbent material made of graphene."
Unless Elon Musk is making them with a 3D printer I'm not interested.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Light colored walls play a crucial role diffusing light into other parts of the room. Having these panels on the walls would darken them, requiring more electric lights, and making the room seem smaller.
Anyway, thumbs up on the basic research on moth eyes.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
How does it stack up against "regular" solar panels?
It doesn't. This is simply the air - material interface that has been shown to be particularly lossless. While that is necessary for higher efficiency solar panels, it's not sufficient. It still needs the panels themselves. The developers still need to make these things cheaply enough. The lifetime of these devices needs to be long enough.
There is a great deal of work that needs to be done before there is anything usable, let alone commercially viable. Let's come back in 5 years and see what progress has been made.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
This isn't the first time us Brits have come up with solar for cloudy days. See:
British scientists develop solar panels which work better on a cloudy day [March 2014]
Both articles lack details about the efficiency in diffused light conditions.
I doubt this very much, the best solar collectors will collect 46% of light, but of course they don't come cheap, current cheap cells are the ones collecting up to 15 to 22% of light.
Cell Efficiency Chart (jpg)If the researchers had created solar collectors with more than 46% efficiency then they would say what the efficiency is and have it verified and it would be big news.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
When you see the word Graphene mentioned you can be sure it's perpetually another 10 years from production. When you see any mention of improved solar panels you can be sure its perpetually another 10 years from production.
We'll have had 99 years of Linux on the Desktop by the time you can buy these
the curtains could be the solar cell. perhaps or make the curtain a set of window blinds which can be a bit more rigid