New coating turns your everyday items into solar power generators
A team of researchers from the University of Oxford's Physics Department has made a significant breakthrough in solar energy technology. They have developed an innovative power-generating coating that can be applied to everyday objects like backpacks, cars, and mobile phones. This development could potentially transform these items into energy generators, marking a new era in solar-powered electricity generation.
Coating's unique properties and performance
The power-generating coating developed by the Oxford team is thin and flexible, making it suitable for application on any surface or structure. It matches the performance of one-layer, energy-generating materials known as silicon photovoltaics. The researchers used a technique that stacks multiple light-absorbing layers into one solar cell, harnessing a wider range of the light spectrum and generating more power from the same amount of sunlight.
It surpasses current panels in efficiency
The new material has been independently verified to deliver over 27% energy efficiency using this multi-junction approach. "During just five years experimenting with our stacking or multi-junction approach we have raised power conversion efficiency from around 6% to over 27%, close to the limits of what single-layer photovoltaics can achieve today," said Dr. Shuaifeng Hu, post doctoral fellow at Oxford University Physics. This new material outperforms current solar panels which can convert around 22% of the energy in sunlight.
Power-generating coating could reduce energy costs
The power-generating coating is just over 1μ (micron) thick, nearly 150 times thinner compared to a silicon wafer, and can be applied to almost any surface. This innovation could potentially reduce the cost of solar energy and make it a more sustainable form of renewable energy. It has strong commercial potential and has already begun to influence applications across utilities, construction, and car manufacturing industries.
Coating could revolutionize solar power generation
Dr. Junke Wang, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University, envisions the coatings being applied to a range of surfaces to generate cheap solar power. He believes that if more solar energy can be generated in this way, there will be less need in the longer term to use silicon panels or develop more solar farms. This development could revolutionize the way we generate and use solar power in the future.
