Creation of a more efficient Organic Solar Cell
The diminishing amount of natural resources and the escalating costs of petroleum and oil have forced many scientists and researchers to look for more efficient energy resources.
Moreover global warming has increased with the burning of fuels for producing energy; which proves that the burning of fossil fuels is not environment friendly.
There are many renewable sources of energy around like the wind and solar energy. However it is better and more feasible for one to harness solar energy as it is possible to fit an individual unit to your home to harness solar energy or to set up a system to provide solar energy to your commercial establishment.
As solar cells are relatively expensive, researchers are working on using plastics to harvest solar energy and accordingly, a discovery has been made at the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Researchers here have worked together to create a new “tandem” organic solar cell that has increased efficiency in harnessing solar energy.
These tandem organic solar cells are made of two multilayered parts that work together so that together, they will be able to gather a wider range of the spectrum of solar radiation of both shorter and longer wavelengths.
These solar cells produce six and a half percent efficiency in solar energy, which is the highest level that has been achieved in solar cells that have been made from organic materials. Though these solar cells are in the developmental stage, they are expected to hit the markets in about three years.
This new solar cell has tandem architecture that improves in the harvesting of light and, is basically less expensive to manufacture. These cells can be fabricated so that it can be made to cover large areas with low cost printing and coating technologies.
It is these technologies that help design the active materials used on lightweight flexible substrates of the solar cell.
With the multilayering in the tandem solar cell, it produces power that is equal in amount to two cells placed in series. And the reason these cells are easier to produce is that the processing of its materials is carried out in the solution in each layer of the multilayered structure.
Each layer of the tandem solar cell is processed from solution using bulk heterojunction materials having semi conducting polymers and fullerene derivatives.
The cells of the organic solar cell are separated and connected by TiOx, which is actually transparent titanium oxide. This is a substance that allows for high level efficiencies in the solar cell. The TiOx transports electrons and acts as a collecting layer for the first cell and as a stable foundation that creates fabrication of the second cell.
This latest discovery in the solar energy world, the tandem solar cell is expected to make large contributions through its use in third world technologies like using laptop computers in areas which are basically not connected to any electricity grid. With these solar cells, no one will feel the pinch of an absence of electricity.
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This article is very interesting, new technologies to improve the capacity of solar cells are even cheaper.
VERY EXCITING research! I have several friends in the solar industry and am working on a custom solar project myself. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
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