As a potential consumer of residential solar panels, advancements in solar technology have been a topic of discussion for my family. Advances in solar technologies which make solar panels more affordable and/or more efficient at converting solar power to electricity always spark my interest. A recent article touts a leap forward in solar cell technology with the potential for producing solar cells that are durable, cost less to manufacture, and hopefully reduce the cost to consumers, without degrading performance. These materials are categorized as perovskites.
Solar cell technology has been heavily researched for a long time. One material in particular has been showing positive results for both efficiency and in reducing cost of manufacturing for solar cell materials. The perovskite solar cells are one of the most promising technologies on the horizon for solar panels with a few potential drawbacks in the way. In the article, A Flat-Out Major Advance for an Emerging Solar Cell Technology, the author suggests that this form of solar cell “can be manufactured using the same method as the cheapest silicon devices, without sacrificing energy-production efficiency.” Although this technology has been around for quite some time, results from recent experiments have presented new applications for perovskite materials. In silicon based solar cells, perovskites were used as a means to absorb photons1 because physicist had not considered the materials to be good conductors of electricity. Scientist experimented with these materials to determine viability for use as an efficient, low cost thin-film solar cell. During the experiments physicist from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom determined that the perovskite materials were “pretty good semiconductor1” and that the material was able to conduct electricity without the addition of a complex nanostructure. The experiments demonstrated that the perovskite cells were just as efficient using the same design and manufacturing method as thin-film silicon.
The Essay on Solar Cell Energy Proteins Photosynthetic
Summary: Researchers have developed a solar cell that converts sunlight into energy through the photosynthetic's of plants. Grounded and purified spinach to harvest photosynthetic proteins. They did this because this released a necessary protein. Proteins act as cell membranes, allowing the functioning of proteins outside their natural environment. Proteins absorb light and deflect electrons in ...
These results have received many accolades however, the perovskite materials have a long way to go to meet the needs of consumers. Perovskites are made from potentially toxic chemicals that include lead. As with silicon cells, perovskite cells have the potential to replace lead with tin which has similar electrical conductive properties. A related article, Perovskite Solar Cells Get the Lead Out, reports that two additional experiments with tin based perovskite solar cells produced similar results (approximately 6% efficiency converting solar energy to electricity) but fall very short of silicon cells and lead-based perovskite cells (approximately 25% and 19% efficient, respectively, at converting solar energy to electricity).
The reduced efficiency and presence of toxic materials are two hurdles for this technology to overcome before being a viable product for solar panel manufactures. However, even if the industry is able to remove the toxic components from the materials, there is a question of durability. David Carroll, a physicist from Wake Forest University, has noted that perovskite materials degrade on continued exposure to ultraviolet sunlight1 which leads me to believe these materials are not as close to reaching consumer markets as the article portrays.
Grade: 15/15
The Dissertation on Double Perovskite Anodo Materials
Chem. Mater. 2009, 21, 2319–2326 2319 Double-Perovskite Anode Materials Sr2MMoO6 (M ) Co, Ni) for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Yun-Hui Huang,*,†,# Gan Liang,‡ Mark Croft,§,| Matti Lehtimaki,⊥ Maarit Karppinen,⊥ and ¨ John B. Goodenough† Texas Materials Institute, ETC 9.102, The UniVersity of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 Department of Physics, Sam Houston State UniVersity, HuntsVille, Texas ...
Comments:
Good essay addressing all the required elements of the assignment. You state why the article interested you, its major claims, potential impact, your assessments and potential barriers. Toxicity could certainly be an impediment!
Good start on the search strategy as well. However, I wondered why you did not pursue the term “Perovskite”. A search on the term quickly returned results of other key terms including perovskite, photovoltaic, solar cell, dye sensitized solar cell, quantum dot solar cell”. Consider looking into the library databases for technical journal resources as well.
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[ 1 ]. Jon Cartwright, September 11, 2013. A Flat-Out Major Advance for an Emerging Solar Cell Technology. Science Magazine. Retrieved from http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2013/09/flat-out-major-advance-emerging-solar-cel-technology
[ 2 ]. Robert Service, May 4, 2014. Perovskite Solar Cells Get the Lead Out. Science Magazine. Retrieved from
http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2014/05/perovskite-solar-cells-get-lead-out
