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Category: solar power

Floquet effects unlock graphene’s potential for future electronics

Graphene is an extraordinary material—a sheet of interlocking carbon atoms just one atom thick that is stable and extremely conductive. This makes it useful in a range of areas, such as flexible electronic displays, highly precise sensors, powerful batteries, and efficient solar cells.

A new study—led by researchers from the University of Göttingen, working together with colleagues from Braunschweig and Bremen in Germany, and Fribourg in Switzerland—now takes graphene’s potential to a whole new level. The team has directly observed “Floquet effects” in graphene for the first time.

This resolves a long-standing debate: Floquet engineering—a method in which the properties of a material are very precisely altered using pulses of light—also works in metallic and semi-metallic quantum materials such as graphene. The study is published in Nature Physics.

Growth strategy enhances efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells

Photovoltaics (PVs), technological systems that can convert sunlight into electricity are among the most promising and widely adopted clean energy solutions worldwide. While existing silicon-based solar cells have already achieved remarkable performances, energy engineers have been working to develop other photovoltaic technologies that could be even more durable, efficient and affordable.

An emerging type of solar cells that could be manufactured at a lower cost, while still retaining good efficiencies, are those based on a class of materials with a characteristic arrangement of atoms, known as perovskites. These cells, known as perovskite solar cells (PSCs), have been found to attain high power conversion efficiencies and are based on materials that could be easier to synthesize when compared to silicon wafers.

Despite their potential, PSCs still face considerable limitations that have so far prevented their widespread deployment and commercialization. Most notably, improving the efficiency of these cells has been found to adversely impact their stability over time, and vice versa.

The world’s volcanoes are waking up — And they’re erupting pure technology

One of Earth’s most unique geological formations is volcanoes, as they can be located either on land or underwater. They are even found on other planets. These formations come in all shapes and sizes, varying from shields to composites and cinder cones. When they erupt, they spew lava. As more and more of the world’s volcanoes are waking, they are also erupting pure technology. That’s right, within these unique geological formations, there are valuable elements that could revolutionize the renewable industry.

The world is gradually transitioning to renewable energy sources as alternatives to burning fossil fuels. This transition forms part of a greater goal to reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Unfortunately, the renewable technologies that we rely on to harness energy from renewable sources are not as environmentally friendly as we want to believe.

According to the SPIE Digital Library, renewable energy technology needs particular elements for production, and obtaining these elements has proven to be challenging. Without these elements, we cannot address other challenges that these technologies face, which are intermittency and storage. For example, solar panels and wind turbines are both dependent on specific weather conditions, which result in intermittency in power supply.

Chemists develop four-charge storage molecule to advance artificial photosynthesis

A research team from the University of Basel, Switzerland, has developed a new molecule modeled on plant photosynthesis: under the influence of light, it stores two positive and two negative charges at the same time. The aim is to convert sunlight into carbon-neutral fuels.

Plants use the energy of sunlight to convert CO2 into energy-rich sugar molecules. This process is called and is the foundation of virtually all life: animals and humans can “burn” the carbohydrates produced in this way again and use the energy stored within them. This once more produces carbon dioxide, closing the cycle.

This model could also be the key to environmentally friendly fuels, as researchers are working on imitating natural photosynthesis and using sunlight to produce high-energy compounds: solar fuels such as hydrogen, methanol and synthetic gasoline. If burned, they would produce only as much carbon dioxide as was needed to produce the fuels. In other words, they would be carbon-neutral.

Increasing efficiency in artificial photosynthesis

Chemical engineers at EPFL have developed a new approach to artificial photosynthesis, a method for harvesting solar energy that produces hydrogen as a clean fuel from water.

“Artificial is the holy grail of all chemists,” says Astrid Olaya, a at EPFL’s Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC). “The goal is to capture sunlight, on the one hand to oxidize water to generate oxygen and protons, and on the other to reduce either protons to hydrogen or CO2 to chemicals and fuels. This is the essence of a circular industry.”

With global energy demands increasing, we are in need of viable alternatives to fossil fuels, whose negative environmental impact has also become all too apparent. One of those alternatives is hydrogen, which can be consumed in simple fuel cells for energy, leaving behind only water.

Your household gadgets could soon be battery-free — scientists create tiny solar cells that can be powered by indoor light

“Currently, solar cells capturing energy from indoor light are expensive and inefficient. Our specially engineered perovskite indoor solar cells can harvest much more energy than commercial cells and is more durable than other prototypes. It paves the way for electronics powered by the ambient light already present in our lives.”

Perovskite is already becoming a popular material for use in solar panels, with marked benefits compared with silicon-based materials.

Solar trees provide opportunity to meet renewable energy targets without deforestation

With the right technology, solar energy has the potential to meet all of the world’s electricity needs, but we are still a long way off from that point. Still, governments around the world are setting high objectives for renewable energy. Many world leaders have set commitments to phase out coal power and transition away from fossil fuels, and solar panel installations are currently one of the top contenders for implementing these plans.

However, solar energy has a bit of a dark secret. In some places, putting up these massive solar panel installations requires cutting down hundreds or even thousands of hectares of forests over time. In South Korea, deforestation caused by solar installations affected 529 hectares of in 2016, 1,435 hectares in 2017, and 2,443 hectares in 2018.

Of course, there are some solar installations located in deserts or other treeless landscapes that don’t have this issue. But those that do end up cutting out an incredibly important carbon sink, first worsening the problem they are attempting to alleviate. This deforestation then causes further issues with erosion and the destruction of natural habitats.

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