Archive for the ‘Alternative Energy’ Category
October 5th, 2010 | 
Author: Did you know that a North Carolina State University staff showed that water gel-based solar devices (named: “artificial leaves”) can act like solar cells to make electricity?
The analysis has been released on-line within the Journal of Materials Chemistry by Doctor. Orlin Velev, an Invista Professor of Chemical and Bio-molecular Engineering.
The findings prove the idea for making solar cells that more closely imitate nature. They also have the opportunity to be cheaper and more beneficial to our environment than the existing standard silicon based solar cells.
The bendable units are composed of water-based gel infused together with light-sensitive molecules (like plant chlorophyll) coupled with electrodes coated by carbon materials, such as carbon nanotubes or graphite.
Graphene is the fundamental structural element of several carbon allotropes including graphite, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. Graphene is a one-atom thick planar sheet of carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The name comes from graphite ene; graphite itself consists of a lot of graphene sheets stacked together.
The light-sensitive molecules get “excited” by the sun’s rays to make electricity, similar to plant molecules that get excited to synthesize all kinds of sugar in order to grow.
Dr. Velev claims that the research team hopes to be able to “learn how to copy the materials through which nature harnesses solar energy.” Although artificial light-sensitive molecules can be used, Velev says naturally produced products, like chlorophyll, are also effortlessly integrated in these products because of their own water-gel matrix.
Velev even imagines a future in which rooftops could be covered with soft sheets of similar electrical power-generating man-made-leaf solar cells. The concept of biologically inspired ‘soft’ products for generating electricity may in the future offer an alternative for the present-day solid-state technologies.
About the Author: Colleen J. Mcguire produces for the http://www.solarwaterfountains.org/, her personal hobby blog site focused on guidelines to help home owners to spend much less energy with solar energy.
Reference: Aqueous soft matter based photovoltaic devices. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 2011;
DOI: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2011/JM/c0jm01820a
Related External Links
Posted in Alternative Energy | 
Tags: alternative energy, clean-energy-, energy, Fountain, solar, water | 
No Comments »
