Lower-Cost Solar Cells Can be Painted onto Rooftops

Nanoparticle ‘inks’ could soon be used to produce solar cells that can simply be sprayed onto a rooftop or other surfaces, and though this sounds like expensive technology, the chemical engineer who created it says it could reduce costs to one-tenth of their current price. Brian Korgel of the University of Texas at Austin says he believes that this reduction in price could thrust solar power into competition with fossil fuels.

From Science Daily:

For the past two years, Korgel and his team have been working on this low-cost, nanomaterials solution to photovoltaics – or solar cell – manufacturing. Korgel is collaborating with professors Al Bard and Paul Barbara, both of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Professor Ananth Dodabalapur of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. They recently showed proof-of-concept in a recent issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The inks could be printed on a roll-to-roll printing process on a plastic substrate or stainless steel. And the prospect of being able to paint the “inks” onto a rooftop or building is not far-fetched.

“You’d have to paint the light-absorbing material and a few other layers as well,” Korgel said. “This is one step in the direction towards paintable solar cells.”

Currently, Korgel and his team at Innovalight, a company he founded, have been able to develop solar-cell prototypes using copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) with efficiencies at one percent. If they can get to 10 percent, there’s great potential for commercialization.

That’s definitely promising considering the fact that America’s solar industry is lagging behind China’s due to the fact that we just can’t seem to compete with their prices. It will be interesting to see how far Korgel and his team can take this technology.

Link [Science Daily]

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