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 Energy
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12 Sep 06 04:22
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Scientists devise new ways to enhance solar cell efficiency
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Vipin Wilson
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Kim Falcon Ravn, Denmark
Managing Director
Visit Falcon Hill, Hua-Hin
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Washington, Sept 11: Harnessing solar energy was once regarded as costly and unfeasible, but various advancements in technology have made it possible for it to play a larger role in the future.
Three separate studies have established ways to increase the efficiencies of solar cells thus enabling them to be used in devices like cell phones, computers, automobiles and other household peripherals.
The first research was conducted by boffins at the University of California, led by Nobel Prize winner Alan J. Heeger, who claims that the plastic solar cells could provide an efficiency of 15 percent by chemically modifying its titanium oxide layers.
The researchers have already created plastic solar cells with efficiencies of between 5 percent and 6 percent - considered among the highest to date for this type of solar cell.
These developments could pave the way for wider use of plastic solar cells, a type of conducting polymer, which are increasingly seen as a low cost, efficient and long-lasting source of solar energy. The second research was conducted by Swiss scientists who created dye-sensitized solar cells that have reached the highest efficiencies to date among a new generation of thin film photovoltaic devices that show promise as a low-cost energy source.
The researchers, led by Michael Graetzel, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, constructed the new cells, composed of an ultra-thin film of nano-sized semiconductor crystals such as titanium dioxide.
The cells have proved to be 6 to 7 percent more efficient than current solar cells.
These cells can be used as inexpensive, flexible sheets on glass windows to supply electric power to homes and businesses or as coatings on tents to supply power for soldiers in the field.
The cells could be used in consumer applications within two to three years, the researchers said.
In the third research, University of Notre Dame scientists found new ways to boost the efficiency of solar cells.
Preliminary studies showed that carbon nanotubes that were engineered into the architecture of semiconductor solar cells (composed of cadmium sulfide, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) resulted in a doubling of the cells' photoconversion efficiencies (converting light into energy).
In some cases, the efficiency of solar cells jumped from 5 percent to 10 percent in the presence of carbon nanotubes, according to Prashant Kamat, Ph.D., a professor of chemistry at the University.
Carbon nanotubes could also be added to other types of solar cells, such as dye-sensitized solar cells and organic solar cells based on conducting polymers, to create similar or even stronger efficiency boosts, he said.
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