Source: R&D
An exciting advance in solar cell technology developed at the University of Kansas (KU) has produced the world’s most efficient photovoltaic (PV) cells made from nanocarbons, materials that have the potential to dramatically drop the costs of PV technology in the future.
“We actually broke the all-carbon PV efficiency record,” says Shenqiang Ren, assistant professor of chemistry at KU, who spearheaded the research with colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Carbon nanotube-based solar cells, in the past, averaged less than 1% in efficiency. Even though these materials show such a large potential, there are so many problems. But we’re addressing them. So now, our efficiency has risen to 1.3%. It doesn’t get to the commercial level of efficiency, but we’re still working on it, trying to optimize it, trying to get better efficiency out of it.”
To be commercially viable, Ren says a photovoltaic panel must cross a 10% efficiency threshold—meaning it must covert a tenth of the sunlight input energy into solar cell output power. Today’s commercially available silicone PV panels are 17 to 22% efficient, but they come with a very high price tag.
The KU researcher said that PV panels made from carbon nanomaterial could advance solar technology because they are made from cheap, easy-to-get, and environmentally sustainable carbon materials; have high optical absorption; and much better photostability—meaning their performance doesn’t degrade after exposure to sunlight.
“In our research, we use carbon buckyballs, carbon nanotubes and a graphene derivative,” says Ren. “The nanocarbon materials show remarkable photostablility without traditional packaging required in organic solar cells. We actually compared two types of solar cells in the laboratory. We had a standard organic solar cell, and then we made exactly the same all-carbon solar cell. Then, we compared the photodegradation without any protective packaging. The organic degraded so rapidly that after 100 hrs the organic solar cell wasn’t functional at all, but the all-carbon solar cell was functioning really well.”
Categories: Alternative energy, Americas, Nanotechnology, Science, Science and Technology, Technology, United States