Grätzel Improves His Remarkable Solar Cells
7 November 2008, 19:11
Categories: smt-energy-photovoltaic
The inventor of dye-sensitized solar cells, Michael Grätzel, has collaborated with Peng Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to produce an efficient solar cells that use nonvolatile electrolytes, with the best achieving efficiencies of 10 percent. The advance “pushes the technology close to over the ‘10 percent hump,’ which is where a thin-film technology needs to be to be economically competitive,” says Tonio Buonassisi, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.
Dye-sensitized solar cells are promising because they’re potentially cheaper to make than conventional solar cells and can be quickly printed. But to achieve high-efficiency levels, it has been necessary to use volatile electrolytes that need to be carefully sealed inside the cells, an expensive and unreliable step in the manufacturing. The researchers paired ionic liquid electrolyte with a new dye, the part of the dye-sensitized solar cell that absorbs sunlight, to increase efficiency to 9.1 percent.
Grätzel is working with two companies to commercialize this technology. One, G24 Innovations, based in the U.K., is planning to sell dye-sensitized solar cells for applications such as recharging cell phones, especially in countries with unreliable electricity. Another company, Dyesol, based in Australia, is planning to sell solar cells that can double as the facades on buildings.
Posted by: The Editors
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