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Related: About this forumRazor-thin solar panels could be 'ink-jetted' onto your backpack or phone for cheap clean energy
A coating 100 times thinner than a human hair could be ink-jetted onto your backpack, cell phone or car roof to harness the suns energy, new research shows, in a development that could reduce the worlds need for solar farms that take up huge swaths of land.
Scientists from Oxford Universitys physics department have developed a micro-thin, light-absorbing material flexible enough to apply to the surface of almost any building or object with the potential to generate up to nearly twice the amount of energy of current solar panels.
The technology comes at a critical time for the solar power boom as human-caused climate change is rapidly warming the planet, forcing the world to accelerate its transition to clean energy.
Heres how it works: The solar coating is made of materials called perovskites, which are more efficient at absorbing the suns energy than the silicon-based panels widely used today. That because its light-absorbing layers can capture a wider range of light from the suns spectrum than traditional panels. And more light means more energy.
The Oxford scientists arent the only ones who have produced this type of coating, but theirs is notably efficient, capturing around 27% of the energy in sunlight. Todays solar panels that use silicon cells, by comparison, typically covert up to 22% of sunlight into power.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/09/climate/solar-panel-inkjet-renewable-energy/index.html
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Razor-thin solar panels could be 'ink-jetted' onto your backpack or phone for cheap clean energy (Original Post)
orangecrush
Aug 2024
OP
Bayard
(24,145 posts)1. Very exciting!
orangecrush
(21,869 posts)5. Lots of possibilities
JoseBalow
(5,228 posts)2. If you could use this as tattoo ink, you could theoretically
tattoo the top of your head, and wire it to a vibrating implant...
eppur_se_muova
(37,450 posts)3. First steps, long way to go. Hope they're no lead-based perovskites. nt
jmowreader
(51,483 posts)4. Put it in shingles...
Then coat the strip that goes under the next row up, and the entire back of the shingle, with copper. Instant solar roof with no extra effort required to install and no ugly boxes screwed to the roof deck.
msongs
(70,185 posts)7. put this or some other kind of panels on roofs of electric vehicles.... nt