Solar energy products these days as many know are quite costly. Imagine everything you use in your home from the radio on your desk, your refrigerator or even your toilet were powered by blackberries, blueberries, oranges and grapes. Sounds kinda far fetched but thats exactly what's being done according to research being done at the University of Rowen. Scientists say "to develop efficient -and most importantly inexpensive- solar cells scientists are following the design of photosynthetic systems". Research on so called "third generation" solar cells is being carried out by a team at Rowen university in New Jersey.
So whats the difference between first, second, and third generation solar cells? "First generation" solar cells such as the solar panels people put on their roofs are based on crystalline silicon which is the same material used to make computer chips and as you can imagine are very expensive. "Second generation" solar cells are based also from that same expensive material but use only thin film strips of it. And so that leaves the "third generation" solar cell which are still in research stage and are some ways away from wide commercial use. There are several different designs under this field including Rowan's "dye sensitized solar cells" which is where the fruit comes in.
The team of Rowan researchers are working on a refined process in which they extract dye from a range of fruit and blend it into a kind of scientific "smoothie". You can make the components from store-bought items," a student at Rowen University said. "Construction of the cells is so simple and inexpensive that anyone can build his or her own given fruit, white paint, iodine and glass." Antonelli added, "There's less output from these organic solar cells than a traditional silicon cell," admitted Green, but the production from fruit is "dirt cheap." While similar work has been done, the extraction process is new, to the best of the team's knowledge. "This project was completed as a part of a chemistry laboratory course," Kuciauskas said. "Students who continue this work will attempt to develop better light-harvesting dyes by assembling larger aggregates of photosynthetic pigments. Such a biomimetric approach is based on green plants and photosynthetic bacteria."
In the past few years solar energy has expanded dramatically and is known as the fastest growing energy technology in the world. In this new research it is clear to me that the future of inexpensive solar energy could potentially help to increase this rapidly improving industry and make an even bigger beneficial impact on the environment. I have great hope for the future that a cleaner more energy efficient future is ahead of us.
So whats the difference between first, second, and third generation solar cells? "First generation" solar cells such as the solar panels people put on their roofs are based on crystalline silicon which is the same material used to make computer chips and as you can imagine are very expensive. "Second generation" solar cells are based also from that same expensive material but use only thin film strips of it. And so that leaves the "third generation" solar cell which are still in research stage and are some ways away from wide commercial use. There are several different designs under this field including Rowan's "dye sensitized solar cells" which is where the fruit comes in.
The team of Rowan researchers are working on a refined process in which they extract dye from a range of fruit and blend it into a kind of scientific "smoothie". You can make the components from store-bought items," a student at Rowen University said. "Construction of the cells is so simple and inexpensive that anyone can build his or her own given fruit, white paint, iodine and glass." Antonelli added, "There's less output from these organic solar cells than a traditional silicon cell," admitted Green, but the production from fruit is "dirt cheap." While similar work has been done, the extraction process is new, to the best of the team's knowledge. "This project was completed as a part of a chemistry laboratory course," Kuciauskas said. "Students who continue this work will attempt to develop better light-harvesting dyes by assembling larger aggregates of photosynthetic pigments. Such a biomimetric approach is based on green plants and photosynthetic bacteria."
In the past few years solar energy has expanded dramatically and is known as the fastest growing energy technology in the world. In this new research it is clear to me that the future of inexpensive solar energy could potentially help to increase this rapidly improving industry and make an even bigger beneficial impact on the environment. I have great hope for the future that a cleaner more energy efficient future is ahead of us.
0 comments:
Post a Comment