Cdn professor develops plastic that more efficiently converts solar energy

[Township75]

TORONTO (CP) - Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that's five times more efficient at turning the sun's power into electrical energy than current methods.

The discovery could lead to shirts and sweaters capable of recharging our cellphones and other wireless devices, said Ted Sargent, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university.


Sargent and other researchers combined specially-designed minute particles called quantum dots, three to four nanometres across, with a polymer to make a plastic that can detect energy in the infrared.


Infrared light is not visible to the naked eye but it is what most remote controls emit, in small amounts, to control devices such as TVs and DVD players.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cpress/20050110/ca_pr_on_tc/nano_solar_power&cid=2152&ncid=2152

[slor]

1. I love this kind of news! n/t

[papau]

2. So I change chanels with the remote and the spouse gets hot ?

Interesting.....


:toast:

:-)

[Township75]

4. LOL!

Good one.

I like the idea of giving some clothing like this to my girlfriend, then using the TV remove to make them so hot that she has to take them off :evilgrin:

[Brundle_Fly]

3. I love this kinda news too

but you just know the rev 1. version of the clothes is gonna be like a bad Tron sequel.

Rev 2, will be more gangsta.

Then hopefully Levi's will buy the patent.

[tanyev]

5. I thought American ingenuity was supposed to

invent us out of the mess we're in. I guess since the state of our science education is getting so bad, our only alternative will be a prayer team praying for the rest of the world to find some solutions.

[RafterMan]

6. Berkeley Labs has a good team

These two guys have been doing heroic work in photovoltaics: http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sb-MSD-multibandsolar-panels.html

Back on topic, I'm thrilled with this Canadian discovery. The article doesn't mention cost, but the polymers have proven cheaper than the crystal-based pv systems in the past. These cells are double the efficiency of regular silicon panels -- if they can come in at half the cost, then we've closed the cost gap to just over double traditional electrical generation.

This is great news.

[midnight armadillo]

7. I wouldn't quite pop the champagne corks yet

History is littered with wonderful laboratory inventions that don't scale or succeed on an industrial scale :-)

[Salviati]

8. So then...

Let me make sure I have the comparisons correct (If you know them that is...) In the articles they cite this type of PV cell as being 6 times more efficient than other cells (30% efficiency vs. 5%), I assume that this comparison is to other plastic based cells, as opposed to the more common silicon crystal based cells, which inferring from your post have ~15% efficiency. Is that right, or am I getting lost in the comparisons somewhere...

[RafterMan]

9. Yes

Silicon (single junction) is ~15% efficient. Those are the things you think of when you think "solar panel". The good consumer-grade ones are 14-17% efficient.

It's the newer, polymer cells that are 6%. These are much cheaper than the silicon, but require more space and might not last as long.