Focus Innovations
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Solar cells can be painted onto surfaces
Scientists at USC – University of Southern California have developed a project to realize solar cells that can be painted or printed on every kind of surfaces.
A solar nanocrystal is about four nanometers in size – meaning that on the head of a pin you can find about 250,000,000,000 of these nanocrystals. Floating these particles into a liquid solution you can print solar cells like printing a newspaper.
These solar cells are cheaper to fabricate than the classical ones but are not nearly as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. Brutchey and Webber, the two scientists, solved one of the key problems of liquid solar cells: how to create a stable liquid that also conducts electricity.
Brutchey and Webber have also discovered a synthetic ligand that not only works well at stabilizing nanocrystals and builds bridges connecting the nanocrystals to help transmit current.
With this project solar cells can be printed onto plastic instead of glass without any issues with melting creating flexible solar panel that can be shaped to fit anywhere.
A solar nanocrystal is about four nanometers in size – meaning that on the head of a pin you can find about 250,000,000,000 of these nanocrystals. Floating these particles into a liquid solution you can print solar cells like printing a newspaper.
These solar cells are cheaper to fabricate than the classical ones but are not nearly as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. Brutchey and Webber, the two scientists, solved one of the key problems of liquid solar cells: how to create a stable liquid that also conducts electricity.
Brutchey and Webber have also discovered a synthetic ligand that not only works well at stabilizing nanocrystals and builds bridges connecting the nanocrystals to help transmit current.
With this project solar cells can be printed onto plastic instead of glass without any issues with melting creating flexible solar panel that can be shaped to fit anywhere.
