Solar Cells

Scientists Are Recycling Centuries-Old Bullets for a Badly Needed Toxic Compound

Researchers want to recycle more lead waste for high-tech solar panels via a new method.

Ultra-Thin, Flexible Solar Cells Could Soon Coat and Power Your Stuff

Developed at Oxford, the cells are just 1 micron thick, but they match conventional materials in efficiency.

Scientists Discover Hidden Information in 140-Year-Old Fundamental Physics Concept

Physicists have uncovered a way to access physical information that had been hidden to science for 140 years, according to a recent paper. Back in 1879, physicist Edwin Hall discovered that electrical currents bend when placed in a magnetic field, producing a voltage and a new electrical field perpendicular to the current. Scientists have since…

Solar Capture Technique Turns CO2 Into Burnable Fuel

Engineers at the University of Chicago have created a new kind of solar cell that efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into usable hydrocarbon fuel—and it does so using only sunlight for energy. In a new paper published in Science, engineer Amin Salehi-Khojin and colleagues describe the new system, which can turn CO2 into fuel at…

Study: Solar Energy Will Be as Cheap as Fossil Fuel Energy by 2016

A new study on solar energy from Deutsche Bank bears very good news. Thanks to technology and innovation, solar energy will be just as cheap as energy from fossil fuels by 2016. That’s basically tomorrow, and it’s awesome. We have a few people to thank for this encouraging turn of events. One is Uncle Sam.…

Introducing the world’s first solar battery. The device — which is part solar cell, part battery — recharges itself using air and light. Nano-scale holes allow air to enter the battery (inset), while rods of titanium dioxide gather light (larger image). The researchers from Ohio State say it’ll help tame the costs of renewable energy.

This Cheap, New Solar Cell Doubles As a Battery

Solar power has an efficiency problem. When the electrons move from the solar panel to the battery that stores them, about 20 percent of the energy is lost. But now, thanks to new type of solar cell, nearly 100 percent of the energy is stored. That’s because the solar cell itself is the battery. Researchers…

A Solar Cell Snowboard Powers Your Gadgets While You Cruise

A couple of years ago the folks at Signal Snowboards tried their hand at making a board with a thin layer of solar cells on top to charge a battery while it careened down the slopes. Not only was their creation a success, it actually worked so well the company decided to put it into…

MIT Explains How To Turn an Old Car Battery Into a Working Solar Cell

There are over 1 billion cars in the world, and the vast majority of them use batteries made from lead. As lithium batteries replace these old timers, eventually there may be many of the lead suckers sitting in landfills. Which is why MIT wanted to find a way to reuse them—by turning them into a…

The Gizmodo Spring Outdoor Gear Guide

The snow melt is running into rivers, giving the grass its first glimpse of sunlight in months. It’s warm enough to trade your down parka in for a light jacket, and, any day now, wildflowers will light up the meadows. It’s spring, people. Who else is amped to camp? First, you’re going to need some…

New Light-Emitting Solar Cells Could Be Used as Smartphone Displays

In the future, the glass that coats our skyscrapers could also serve as the power plant that keeps the lights on. This is not news. However, with an amazing new material being developed in Singapore, that same glass could also turn your city’s windows into skyscraper-sized displays. https://gizmodo.com/color-solar-panels-let-stained-glass-windows-produce-ch-1535412144 Researchers from the Nanyang Technological University just…

New Connectors Let Solar Cells Withstand the Power of 70,000 Suns

The power of 1,000 suns? Pfft. That ain’t nuthin’. A recent breakthrough in solar panel connections has allowed scientists to create arrays of solar cells that can stand strong under the blazing glare of 70,000 suns. Not that they’d ever have to, but still. Stacked solar cells—which are exactly what they sound like—are some of…

Tiny Solar Cell Converts An Amazing 44.4% of Sunlight To Electricity

Today’s solar panels convert about 20% of the Sun’s energy to electricity—which is good, but solar power would be much cheaper to use if the solar cells converted more of our star’s energy. Sharp has just made a huge step in this direction, with a new cell that converts a record 44.4% of sunlight into…

How to Print 2000 Miles of Solar Cells a Year

You’re looking at the Applied Bacini Pegaso—one of the most productive solar cell printing lines on the planet—fabricating electrical circuits on both sides of a solar cell. And by productive, I mean 20 million cells a year, enough to power 10,000 typical US homes. Two cassettes—each holding 40 Photovoltaic wafers—are loaded into the system every…

Bendable Graphene Batteries Take a Page from Gumby

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) may be on the cusp of creating something special: Bendable batteries that could have better performance than their stiff, inflexible cousins. Made from graphene, these batteries would do well paired up with the flexible OLED displays we’ve seen teased here and there in recent…

New technology that captures “exciton” particles could replace today’s solar cells

Even the most efficient solar cell loses a lot of energy in the form of wasted heat. But the electron-like particles that photons emit as they enter the cells could be turned into electrical energy, solving the heat loss problem. When photons, the particles of light, enter solar cells, they can create a quasiparticle known…

MIT’s Self-Assembling Solar Cells Recycle Themselves Repeatedly, Just Like Plant Cells

Plants are extremely efficient converters of light into energy, setting the bar for researchers creating photovoltaic cells. A team of MIT scientists believe they’ve created a synthetic chloroplast that can be broken down and reassembled repeatedly, restoring sun-damaged solar cells. While the leaves on a tree appear to be as static as the PV cells…

Inventor of Photosynthesis-Based Solar Cells Wins Millennium Tech Prize

A Switzerland-based chemist who invented solar cells that mimic photosynthesis is the winner of a million-dollar technology prize announced Wednesday. Michael Gratzel invented low-cost solar cells that can be turned into electricity-generating windows, mobile solar panels and other devices. He won the $960,000 (€800,000) Millennium Technology Prize, awarded every other year by Finland’s Technology Academy.…

Apple Targets Solar-Powered iPhones

Apple’s got more than one patent devoted to solar powered devices, and today we’ve got yet another. Patently Apple has dug up plans for a touch-sensitive integrated solar panel for media players. While it might be a bit premature to expect the next iPhone to incorporate solar cells, the flat back design would certainly make…

This Piece Of Paper Is a Solar Panel

Researchers at MIT have figured out how to create solar cells thin enough to be pasted onto sheets of paper, with an applicator that works sort of like an inkjet printer. (Note: We are apparently stuck with inkjet printers, forever.) In their current state, the cells are just under 2% efficient at converting sunlight into…