Feb
15
Solar Powered Hydrogen Production
February 15, 2010 | 11 Comments
The need for free hydrogen in industry and fuels is huge and the potential when a low cost method arrives, staggering. Methane is nothing more than a carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms, so any production that comes up with hydrogen at low cost is going to be a breakthrough. Professor Thomas Nann and colleagues [...]
Mar
10
A Whole New Solar Cell Type
March 10, 2009 | 3 Comments
The idea to use fool’s gold rather than silicon or thin film for photovoltaic solar cells is an idea developing out of Switzerland that is gaining credibility, sophistication and technical success. Fool’s gold, the shiny mineral found in some rocks is dirt cheap and comparatively easy to make molecule. The technical description is a mineral [...]
Jan
19
A Path to a Better Solar Cells, Light Devices and Electronics
January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Greg Scholes and Elisabetta Collini of University of Toronto´s Department of Chemistry are investigating how light initiates physical processes at the molecular level and how humans might take better advantage of that fact by looking specifically at conjugated polymers that are believed to be one of the most promising candidates for building efficient organic solar [...]
Nov
14
An Innovative Take on Managing the Incoming Light
November 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Solar photovoltaic cells have a big cost barrier to get to widespread adoption. Paired up with difficult weather like hail and wind much of the world remains completely out of bounds. So when something really clever and innovative shows up, its worth a close look.
Morgan Solar’s whiz, John Paul Morgan came up with a light [...]
Oct
23
A New Solar Sensation
October 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Ohio State University research leader Professor Malcolm Chisholm at the Department of Chemistry and two noted researchers at the National Taiwan University Department of Chemistry have their new photovoltaic solar material research published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
The excitement is about a synthesized electrically conductive plastic combined with metals including molybdenum [...]
Oct
14
What Is That Black Silicon Stuff?
October 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
You’re aware of silicon wafers made into computer chips and solar cells by very high technological skills with huge investments. There has been an enormous payoff in new products with these things appearing in an ever-growing list of products. Those chips are made by etching circuits into silicon’s shiny surface.
Black Silicon is another kind of [...]
Oct
7
The Smallest Solar Cell Goes Flexible
October 7, 2008 | 5 Comments
Sunday saw the journal Nature Materials prepublish on the website the abstract for John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his team’s results in downsizing silicon solar cells with a new method to cut the chip off of the silicon crystal wafer.
The Rogers team offers a new way to process conventional silicon [...]
Oct
6
Solar Panels for the Rest of Us
October 6, 2008 | 2 Comments
Here the wind blows, the hail pounds and the insurance quote for $20K of solar panels is 4 times the savings in electricity bought from the grid. Those realities cover a large swath of inhabited land – where the glass encased solar cell isn’t practical.
Durability is key to the widespread adoption of solar collection. It’s [...]
Sep
22
Checking Up On Solar Panels
September 22, 2008 | 2 Comments
Plug in hybrids and an ever-increasing growth in electrical appliances plus the worldwide growth of increased incomes is pushing electrical demand just faster than supply can answer. Solar photovoltaic offers a high capital cost but low operating cost answers. But capital costs are projected to come down with more supply of silicon and the thin [...]
Aug
5
The Hydrogen Economy Might Have Gotten Real Legs
August 5, 2008 | 5 Comments
I have been quite unimpressed by the “hydrogen economy” concept because of the difficulty in storing and transporting the smallest atom. I can live with the other attributes as careful engineering can cope. I still have reservations about regular folks handling such a volatile fuel. This is moderated by the reports out of MIT from [...]
