Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cheap paintable solar cells

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Prof. Somenath Mitra at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and his research team have created a new type of photovoltaic cell that can be applied to flexible plastic sheets by either painting or printing processes. The hope is to eventually allow people to print sheets of the cells at home to be applied to any surface to generate power. The new cells are substantially cheaper to produce than traditional types and because of the flexibility they can be applied to many different surfaces like the roof of a car. The new cell structure is based on carbon nanotubes combined with tiny carbon Buckyballs. The combined structure allows the electrons to flow with greater conductivity than copper. There is no information right now about the efficiency of the new cells although Mitra says the new organic solar cell can enhance the efficiency of future cells which indicates the current ones have less efficiency.

[Source: Science Daily via instapundit, thanks to Alex for the tip!]

 

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