Eco factor: Researchers develop affordable solar technology using nickel and selenium.
Developing affordable solar technology holds the key towards making this form of clean energy use both commercially and domestically viable. Researchers at the University of Toronto have been exploring ways to produce less expensive and more efficient solar cells. They recently demonstrated that nickel can work just as well as gold for electrical contacts in colloidal quantum dot solar cells. It has claimed that this technology will help reduce the cost of quantum dot solar cells by 40 to 80 percent.
In another research work a team from California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tried a combination of selenium with zinc oxide. This led to a dramatic increase in oxide’s efficiency in absorbing solar light. It has been found that an increase of selenium concentration by nine percent in a mostly zinc oxide base can have pronounced effect on its ability to absorb light.
Since both quantum dot solar cells and zinc oxide are relatively inexpensive it is claimed that the technology’s commercialization can boost the cells’ overall efficiency
Via: Gizmag
