Eco Factor: Plastic material that could convert light to electricity could have a big impact on solar technology.
Generating electricity from light isn’t anything new in the technology field. However, even after decades of research scientists haven’t been able to generate optimum power at an optimum cost using the best in the field. While the world is desperately in need of a breakthrough, researchers aren’t leaving any stones unturned as well. Researchers at the University of Washington have laid their bets on low-cost plastic materials that can convert incident light into electricity at a decent efficiency rating.
With a goal to develop cells made from plastic that can convert at least 10% of the sunlight that they absorb into usable electricity, these researchers think they’ve found something extremely important that is usually embedded deep into the solar cells – bubbles and channels, roughly 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, inside plastic solar cells.
These researchers believe that altering the shape and orientation of these bubbles and channels, which are created in a baking process, called annealing, they can enhance the performance of the materials that generate electricity from sunlight. The research team has found a way to make images of these tiny bubbles and channels and measure the amount of current each carries. Modifying these channels can finally enable the researcher achieve their 10% efficiency goal.
The initial use of the new type of cells that will be developed by this research team can be their use in purses and backpacks that can charge portable electronic devices, but with subsequent improvements the cells can have wider applications as well.
Via: ScienceDaily/University of Washington
