Eco Factor: Transparent light-harvesting polymer material for power generating windows.
The latest trend of generating power has almost reached the threshold of our windows. Catching up with the trend, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a new type of self-assembling transparent thin film material, which effectively generates clean electricity by being applied to the surface of the windows.
The developed material consists of a semiconducting polymer combined with carbon-rich fullerenes in the shape of a soccer ball that makes a cage-like molecular structure comprising 60 carbon atoms. This material when applied to a surface, itself assembles and forms micron-sized hexagonal-shaped cells spanning in several millimeters area.
The material owing to its development is densely packed on the edges which absorb light for power, while they center of the material layering is relatively transparent. With perfection in large-scale patterning of the polymer material would not only enable energy-generating solar windows but could also be useful in developing optical displays.
Via: Gizmag
