Solar ♦ news digest
UAlberta researcher Jillian Buriak (centre) worked with post- doctoral fellows Erik Luber (right) andHosnay Mobarok to create nanoparticles that could lead to printable or spray-on solar cells
Buriak and her team have designed nanoparticles that absorb light and conduct electricity from two very common elements: phosphorus and zinc. Both materials are more plentiful than scarce materials such as cadmium and are free from manufacturing restrictions imposed on lead-based nanoparticles.
“Half the world already lives off the grid, and with demand for electrical power expected to double by the year 2050, it is important that renewable energy sources like solar power are made more affordable by lowering the costs of manufacturing,” Buriak says.
Her team’s research supports a promising approach of making solar cells cheaply using mass manufacturing methods like roll- to-roll printing (as with newspaper presses) or spray-coating (similar to automotive painting). “Nanoparticle-based ‘inks’ could be used to literally paint or print solar cells or precise compositions,” Buriak continues.
Buriak collaborated with U of A post-doctoral fellows Erik Luber of the U of A Faculty of Engineering and Hosnay Mobarok of the Faculty of Science to create the nanoparticles. The team was able to develop a synthetic method to make Zn3P2nanoparticles, and demonstrated that the particles can be dissolved to form an ink and processed to make thin films that are responsive to light.
Buriak and her team are now experimenting with the nanoparticles, spray-coating them onto large solar cells to test their efficiency. The team has applied for a provisional patent and has secured funding to enable the next step to scale up manufacture.
This work is described in detail in the paper, “Solution- Processed Zinc Phosphide (α-Zn3P2) Colloidal Semiconducting Nanocrystals for Thin Film Photovoltaic Applications, “ by Erik J. Luber et al in ACS Nano. DOI: 10.1021/nn4034234
The research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
GaP bridges the gap in extracting fuel from solar power
A novel gallium phosphide/catalyst structure can be used to absorb visible light
In the search for clean, green sustainable energy sources to meet human needs for generations to come, perhaps no technology matches the ultimate potential of artificial photosynthesis.
Bionic leaves that could produce energy-dense fuels from just sunlight, water and atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide, with no by products other than oxygen, represent an ideal alternative to fossil fuels.
But they also pose numerous scientific challenges.
For more than two billion years, nature, through photosynthesis, has used the energy in sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into fuel (sugars) for green plants. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt)
A major step toward meeting at least one of these challenges has been achieved by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) working at the Joint Centre for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP).
“We’ve developed a method by which molecular hydrogen- producing catalysts can be interfaced with a semiconductor that absorbs visible light,” says Gary Moore, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and principal investigator for JCAP. “Our experimental results indicate that the catalyst and the light-absorber are interfaced structurally as well as functionally.”
August/September 2013
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