Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will use a way to concentrate sunlight so they can get a more powerful solar energy up to 100 times than current traditional photovoltaic cells. They use solar funnel with carbon nanotubes - hollow tubes made of carbon atoms to capture and focus light energy.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Materials explaining that the chemical engineer at MIT explained that a photovoltaic cell roofs will has little spots that were tiny photovoltaic cells, with incredibly small antennas (10 micrometers long and 4 micrometers thick) that would drive photons into them. The antennas are made of 30 million carbon nanotubes.
But this technology is still constrained by the price of carbon nanotubes are still high, so hopefully will continue to experience price declines along with the current development of chemical company production capacity. MIT team continues to work to obtain more efficient technologies such as minimizing energy loss due to the flow of excitons through the fibers.
Furthermore, the solar funnel technology can also be applied in the manufacture of telescopes or night vision goggles to concentrate the light.
Yes, the idea of using nanotubes to capture and direct photons makes sense.
ReplyDeleteAt CalTech they went the other way and made silicon nanorods mounted on a substrate.
Each nanorod is it's own solar cell.
Nanorods in about 15% coverage of the substrate is enough to capture 90% of the light.
Light that bounces off the substrate generally hits the side of a nanorod and is absorbed.
Interesting! I have been doing lots of research trying to find out more about solar energy in California.
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ReplyDeleteThis is some really interesting information! I am going to use this in my paper on Solar Energy San Francisco. It's amazing how far solar power has come today.
ReplyDeleteResearcher at Stanford University developed solar cell made from carbon which could change the solar energy industry.
ReplyDeleteCurrently,photovoltaic solar panel are silicon based wafer,but carbon is one of the most abundant element on earth.Demand of silicon between solar energy industries caused worldwide shortage of silicon.
so,there is great demand for carbon solar cell and it result in cheaper solar panel. energy market research