http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48378Cheap plastic solar cells are now closer to becoming a reality thanks to a team of U.S. scientists at the Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. The researchers announced last month they had pushed the efficiency of plastic solar cells to more than 6 percent.
That percentage may not seem like a huge landmark compared to a photovoltaic (PV) cell achieving an efficiency rating of say 40.7 percent, which was the milestone attained by Spectrolab, Inc. in December 2006. But 3 percent was the highest efficiency ever achieved for plastic solar cells until 2005 when David Carroll, director of the Wake Forest nanotechnology center, and his research group announced they had come close to reaching 5 percent efficiency.
Now, a little more than a year later, Carroll said his group has surpassed the 6 percent mark.
<snip>
In order to be considered a viable technology for commercial use however, solar cells must be able to convert about 8 percent of the energy in sunlight to electricity. Wake Forest researchers hope to reach 10 percent in the next year, said Carroll, who is also associate professor of physics at Wake Forest.
<more>
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
