Solar Development: Better Crystals, “Baked” And Painted

Restricting large subsidies, providing solar energy to the masses – from home to their cell phones – requires a greater fall in the cost of technology. Last week, a group of researchers in Australia and China announced they had moved towards the “holy grail of cost-effectiveness of solar energy.”

According to Professor Max Lu, University of Queensland, Australia, the team has grown “the first titanium oxide crystals with the world’s largest number of reactive surfaces, something that was predicted as impossible.” This is what the titanium oxide – a mineral many renewable and non-toxic and often found in white paint – is known for its ability to absorb UV light and produce electrons that can break the components on its surface. That makes it useful for self cleaning windows and concrete “that absorbs the pollution.” It can also be used in solar cells at low cost and low efficiency, also known as the Gratzel cell. Until now, the challenge addressed by the application of titanium oxide dyes has been imposed in order to be efficient in a long surface area to which the material can absorb light and conduct electricity. But to harvest cells more reactive titanium oxide made a serious breakthrough. Lu said:

“The beauty of our technique is that it is very simple and economical to make these materials in temperate conditions. Now that research has clarified the conditions required, the method is like cooking in an oven and the crystals can be applied as paint. ”

The researchers also say that technology can be used to separate hydrogen from water to create energy and eliminate the water pollution. While a decade may pass before this technology can be used in solar cell, said Lu, applications depolluters to be five years away, today there is concrete that absorb CO2.

A similar research last year about harmful solar affordable technologies – in the NJ Institute of Technology, Massey University, and especially at the University Of Notre Dame – also relies on monostructure to create cells high-efficiency solar. Using an available titanium oxide instead of silicon solar cells could not only prove to be cheaper and more effective, but potentially more sustainable.

Please note the origin of some of these studies: China. Cheap solar energy not only help reduce pollution in some of the most polluted cities, but also help strengthen the determination of China to leapfrog the U.S. and Europe with regard to sustainable technologies, in a style of warfare technology green can only help.