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A Colorful Approach to Solar Energy
July 11, 2008Revisiting a once-abandoned technique, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have successfully created a sophisticated, yet affordable, method to turn ordinary glass into a high-tech solar concentrator.
The technology, which uses dye-coated glass to collect and channel photons otherwise lost from a solar panel's surface, could eventually enable an office building to draw energy from its tinted windows as well as its roof.
Electrical engineer Marc Baldo, his graduate students Michael Currie, Jon Mapel and Timothy Heidel, and postdoctoral associate Shalom Goffri, announced their findings in the July 11 issue of Science.
"We think this is a practical technology for reducing the cost of solar power," said Baldo.
The researchers coated glass panels with layers of two or more light-capturing dyes. The dyes absorbed incoming light and then re-emitted the energy into the glass, which served as a conduit to channel the light to solar cells along the panels' edges. The dyes can vary from bright colors to chemicals that are mostly transparent to visible light.
Because the edges of the glass panels are so thin, far less semiconductor material is needed to collect the light energy and convert that energy into electricity.
"Solar cells generate at least ten times more power when attached to the concentrator," added Baldo.
Because the starting materials are affordable, relatively easy to scale up beyond a laboratory setting, and easy to retrofit to existing solar panels, the researchers believe the technology could find its way to the marketplace within three years.
The new technology emerged in part from an NSF Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team effort to transfer the capabilities of photosynthesis to solar technology.
The researchers' approach succeeded where efforts from the 1970s failed because the thin, concentrated layer of dyes on glass is more effective than the alternative--a low concentration of dyes in plastic--at channeling most of the light all the way to the panel edges. However, the current technology still needs further development to create a system that will last the 20- to 30-year lifetime necessary for a commercial product.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)
"We think this is a practical technology for reducing the cost of solar power," said Baldo.
The researchers coated glass panels with layers of two or more light-capturing dyes. The dyes absorbed incoming light and then re-emitted the energy into the glass, which served as a conduit to channel the light to solar cells along the panels' edges. The dyes can vary from bright colors to chemicals that are mostly transparent to visible light.
Because the edges of the glass panels are so thin, far less semiconductor material is needed to collect the light energy and convert that energy into electricity.
"Solar cells generate at least ten times more power when attached to the concentrator," added Baldo.
Because the starting materials are affordable, relatively easy to scale up beyond a laboratory setting, and easy to retrofit to existing solar panels, the researchers believe the technology could find its way to the marketplace within three years.
The new technology emerged in part from an NSF Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team effort to transfer the capabilities of photosynthesis to solar technology.
The researchers' approach succeeded where efforts from the 1970s failed because the thin, concentrated layer of dyes on glass is more effective than the alternative--a low concentration of dyes in plastic--at channeling most of the light all the way to the panel edges. However, the current technology still needs further development to create a system that will last the 20- to 30-year lifetime necessary for a commercial product.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)
Solar Energy News and Current Solar Energy Events RSSDOE official cites need for major breakthroughs to cope with climate change
Meeting the world's growing energy needs while responding to global warming during the 21st Century will be one of the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced, Raymond L. Orbach, Ph.D., the U.S. Department of Energy's Under Secretary for Science, says in the latest podcast in the American Chemical Society's Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions series
Even seaweeds get sunburned
It is red, it burns and itches: a sunburn on our skin. However, too much sun is not only bad for humans. Many plants react sensitively to an increased dose of ultraviolet radiation, too. Yet they are dependent on sunlight.
Future for clean energy lies in 'big bang' of evolution
Amid mounting agreement that future clean, "carbon-neutral", energy will rely on efficient conversion of the sun's light energy into fuels and electric power, attention is focusing on one of the most ancient groups of organism, the cyanobacteria.
Flexible nanoantenna arrays capture abundant solar energy
Researchers have devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources. The technology, developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory, is the first step toward a solar energy collector that could be mass-produced on flexible materials.
Birdsong not just for the birds
Computer scientists from the University of Bonn, in conjunction with the birdsong archives of Berlin's Humboldt University, have developed a kind of 'Big Brother' for birds. This has nothing to do with entertainment, but a lot to do with the protection of nature.
A dash of lime -- a new twist that may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels
Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere, reports Cath O'Driscoll in SCI's Chemistry & Industry magazine published today.
Researchers generate hydrogen without the carbon footprint
A greener, less expensive method to produce hydrogen for fuel may eventually be possible with the help of water, solar energy and nanotube diodes that use the entire spectrum of the sun's energy, according to Penn State researchers.
Study: Future snowmelt in West twice as early as expected; threatens ecosystems and water reserves
According to a new study, global warming could lead to larger changes in snowmelt in the western United States than was previously thought, possibly increasing wildfire risk and creating new water management challenges for agriculture, ecosystems and urban populations.
New efficiency benchmark for dye-sensitized solar cells
In a paper published online June 29 in the journal Nature Materials, EPFL professor Michael Graetzel, Shaik Zakeeruddin and colleagues from the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have achieved a record light conversion efficiency of 8.2% in solvent-free dye-sensitized solar cells.
Argonne's Hard X-ray Nanoprobe provides new capability to study nanoscale materials
The Center for Nanoscale Materials' (CNM) newly operational Hard X-ray Nanoprobe at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world's most powerful x-ray microscopes.
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