Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday August 15 2017, @11:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the going-green-literally dept.

Science Daily has an article on a new way to promote the use of solar energy, by developing new colors using silicon nanopatterns. Those solar panels then may be more easily used to beautify (or at least blend into) areas. Although, there is an efficiency hit, there is also potential to use this to increase overall efficiency through layering dedicated spectrum absorbing layers.

Solar panels have tremendous potential to provide affordable renewable energy, but many people see traditional black and blue panels as an eyesore. Architects, homeowners and city planners may be more open to the technology if they could install green panels that melt into the landscape, red panels on rooftops and white ones camouflaged as walls.

A new study published this week in Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing, brings us one step closer to a future of colorful, efficient solar panels. Researchers have developed a method for imprinting existing solar panels with silicon nanopatterns that scatter green light back toward an observer. The panels have a green appearance from most angles yet only show about a 10 percent power reduction due to the loss of absorbed green light.

[...] Neder and colleagues created their efficient, green solar panels through soft-imprint lithography, which works somewhat like an optical rubber stamp to imprint a dense array of silicon nanocylinders onto the cell surfaces. Each nanocylinder is about 100 nanometers wide and exhibits an electromagnetic resonance that scatters a particular wavelength of light. The geometry of the nanocylinder determines which wavelength it scatters and can be fine-tuned to change the color of the solar cell. The imprint reduces the solar panel's efficiency by about 2 percent.

"In principle, this technique is easily scalable for fabrication technology," said Albert Polman, a scientific group leader at AMOLF and senior author on the paper. "You can use a rubber stamp the size of a solar panel that in one step, can print the whole panel full of these little, exactly defined nanoparticles."

[...] The nanopatterns also could be useful in making tandem solar cells, which stack several layers, each designed to absorb certain parts of the spectrum, to achieve efficiencies of greater than 30 percent.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:01AM (5 children)

    by Nerdfest (80) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:01AM (#554500)

    I would think 10% loss in power would be unacceptably high. I guess not.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:12AM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:12AM (#554503) Journal

      To an engineer, a ten percent loss would be unacceptable. To marketing droids, it means nothing. As long as they have an angle with which to sell stuff, they are happy. To end users, a loss of efficiency means nothing. They see "ooohhh, PRETTY!" So, solar panels become the new bling.

      I've never thought about it, really, but how durable are solar panels? They talk about white walls, but how long will the white walls remain shiny and bright? And, how long will the photoreceptors continue to make electricity? If the panels last 100 years in real life usage, then this is all great. If they begin losing efficiency in the first five years, and continue losing over the next 20 years, then maybe they aren't such a good idea. If their lifetime is less than 20 years, then they pretty much suck.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:17AM (1 child)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:17AM (#554514) Journal

        I've never thought about it, really, but how durable are solar panels?

        20 years is a required (regulated) manufacturers warranty in most of the places. Most of the PV panels now have at least 25 years long life-cycle.

        Lifespan and degradation rates [engineering.com] - less than 1% for pre-2000 models. For panels post-2000, on average (over all types of technologies) being 0.4%/year - some tech being much less prone to degradation.

        Just make sure to dust them from time to time, y-2-y dirt accumulation will drive the efficiency more than the rate of cell degradation. Use water jet.

        To an engineer, a ten percent loss would be unacceptable... To end users, a loss of efficiency means nothing.

        :) Ad gutum guesses, but sold as hard facts, eh?
        Asking the oracle: what about users who are engineers (perhaps in unrelated fields)?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:48AM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:48AM (#555068) Journal

          Asking the oracle: what about users who are engineers (perhaps in unrelated fields)?

          What about the users who are high-school graduates. There isn't all that much math involved, and most of them can read.

          Do they want to shell out more money for a pretty panel and STILL have to pay power bills on top of that, or buy the boring one and seldom or perhaps never pay an electric bill again?

          The dropouts will just paint them any color they want.

          It doesn't take an engineer.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:51AM

      by RamiK (1813) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:51AM (#554521)

      While photovoltaic cells' degradation models aren't as well understood as plants' chlorophyll photodamage, and although the chemistry is completely different, seeing how UV radiation and heat are understood to be the biggest damage source for both*, it's entirely possible repeating nature's course to specialize over a certain wave-length by selecting green pigments might lead to reduced degradation over time and as such, a gain in power over the years.

      And yeah, there's also stacking.

      *water penetration in photovoltaic is a manufacturing defect.

      --
      compiling...
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by rigrig on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:47AM

      by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:47AM (#554662) Homepage

      It depends:
      If you were planning on placing panels anyway, 10% loss so you can have a pretty colour is probably too much.
      But if you decided regular panels are just too ugly, you might be willing to place prettier panels which still generate some power.

      --
      No one remembers the singer.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Snotnose on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:26AM (2 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:26AM (#554504)

    Went to Kohl's, which has 2 parking spaces labelled "Charging, green cars only". A green Dodge Charger was parked there. Didn't hit me til later, wish I'd taken a pic.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:40AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:40AM (#554520)
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:51AM

        by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:51AM (#555070) Journal

        Given there was no charging equipment there, I kind of wonder if it wasn't a photoshop job.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:17AM (#554527)

    What if I told you that Tesla wasn't pumping energy into the air, he was pulling direct current out of the air, converting it to alternating current with a spark gap, and then using receiver coils to pick up the AC EM waves generated by his Tesla coil?

    Yeah, I know, sounds crazy until you actually measure the electrical potential between the ground and a few hundred feet in the air. [youtube.com]

    Shh, let's hope these guys making atmospheric power stations fly under the radar and don't get disappeared like all the other times. [youtube.com]

    Now, if the top of the pyramid was highly conductive, and it had a really good ground underneath, well, then... Yep. Go checkout what Tesla was researching when he got his ideas.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:37AM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:37AM (#554531) Homepage Journal

    If the green, white and red are the right shades for the Mexican flag, I'm very interested in these new solar panels. For a major construction project I'm planning. If they have transparent ones too, that will be perfect. For safety reasons I want transparent panels. 🇺🇸

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Virindi on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:41AM (1 child)

    by Virindi (3484) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:41AM (#554533)

    Seems like a decent idea, but I am skeptical about the concept of white panels. The amount of energy being reflected would have to be pretty high for it to look white when illuminated with direct sunlight, and standard panels do not really collect much outside of visible light (there are many promises of course that "it is just around the corner!" and "we just have to figure out how to mass produce it", but we all know how that works).

    Given the emissions you get from sunlight, red or green might be decent choices though.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:23PM (#554677)

      Remember the atmosphere just happens to be pretty transparent at visible wavelengths (or, rather, our vision is adapted to wavelengths the atmosphere passes), but in the infrared, there's a bunch of absorption bands that cut out maybe 50% or so of the non-visible light, so there's even less energy available to those just-around-the-corner IR-collecting PV panels than you might think. In space it's a different story, of course, but in space nobody is concerned enough with aesthetics to pick white solar panels over efficient solar panels.

(1)