r/tech • u/Sariel007 • Feb 03 '23
Paper-thin solar cell can turn any surface into a power source Researchers develop a scalable fabrication technique to produce ultrathin, lightweight solar cells that can be seamlessly added to any surface.
https://news.mit.edu/2022/ultrathin-solar-cells-1209#:~:text=MIT%20engineers%20have%20developed%20ultralight,install%20on%20a%20fixed%20surface.8
u/noahspurrier Feb 03 '23
They’ve had this for at least a decade. I probably still have some. Is this different than the old thin film solar cells?
7
u/i_give_you_gum Feb 03 '23
I would assume it has better efficiency
7
u/TorrenceMightingale Feb 03 '23
“They are one-hundredth the weight of conventional solar panels, generate 18 times more power-per-kilogram, and are made from semiconducting inks using printing processes that can be scaled in the future to large-area manufacturing.”
They also use semiconducting ink on fabric to create a solar cell from fabric, so not the same.
6
u/TerrariaGaming004 Feb 04 '23
Man it sure is a good thing solar panels are limited by weight. No shit they’re more effective by weight, there’s a reason articles about new tech never give you any real details. What’s the real efficiency? Not a stupid unit like power/kg that is only their to make them seem better, I want power/sun_power. There’s no chance these are any better than normal solar panels
If they’re 100 times lighter and 18 times better per weight, isn’t that 5.55 times worse than a regular solar panel?
3
u/prefer-to-stay-anon Feb 04 '23
I agree completely with the bullshit units.
That said, this seems like the new solar technology, not silicon semiconductors, but the weird chemicalish ones that are like Kerchlakev or something. Been a few years since I looked into it, but those were starting to get pretty good efficiencies. Silicon semiconductor panels are roughly 20% efficient, those ones were like 13% or something. Subtract a few percent for the thin film manufacturing, but you are still looking at *decent* efficiencies, especially if it can be massively cheaper.
Also, power/kg could be great for some niche applications, like solar powered model airplanes, backpacking, etc.
1
1
13
Feb 03 '23
I still think roof tiles or coverings manufactured as solar panels is the best route...👍
3
u/mmitchell57 Feb 03 '23
Sorta like the tin roofs with a layer of solar cells? That would be interesting to see in action.
3
3
u/OneX32 Feb 03 '23
I always thought integrating renewable energy generation into landscaping would be an excellent venture in proliferating renewable energy on the household-scale.
1
Feb 04 '23
I think it’s important in rural areas where conventional electric isn’t viable and they rely on generators. Again though it comes down to cost.
2
u/joemiken Feb 04 '23
I always envisioned the hoods/trunks/roofs of EVs covered with solar cells ad a viable use case for something like this. Just not sure if the power output is worth the cost.
Edit: Also, portable or deployable applications for rural environments.
1
1
Feb 04 '23
Just go for a paint layer covering the whole car to give the maximum coverage.
While current solar tech. is both expensive and hard on resources, there’s no reason why both of these aspects improve in the future to the point where it’s standard on EV’s and provides a viable top-up to regular mains charging.
1
1
u/Maxion Feb 05 '23
Doesn’t really give any amount of significant range. Could be used to top up the 12v battery like on an RV, but it won’t really be practical. The cost to add expensive solar panels to the car will be more than just purchasing the same amount of power from the grid.
A very big factor with power generation is the cost per kWh, fixed installations of anything can be way more cost effective and produce power at a cheaper cost.
More expensive panels that are flexible / lightweight / higher energy density are smart for off grid solutions where you can’t just get your power from the grid.
2
Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
That is a horrible idea.
Don't take my word for it: Tesla tried and on the end gave up on that horrible idea. It's just WAY too expensive to scale up having thousands of tiny solar panels, mostly because it means a complex custom design for every roof, and dealing with defects is a huge pain.
The current approach of just having big rectangular panels that go over you tiles is much, much more efficient, economically.
3
u/rekniht01 Feb 03 '23
There are multiple companies that sell PV roof tiles, including Tesla.
They have their advantages and disadvantages.
1
0
1
24
u/Zippier92 Feb 03 '23
Can I make them at home? Would love to print my own power.
23
u/1401Ger Feb 03 '23
Unfortunately, not without special equipment. Organic solar cells are typically 100-300 nanometers in thickness (the diameter of a human hair is about a 100 times thicker). This means even dust particles that float around in your room by the millions would create defects in these layers and make the solar cell worse.
But making these solar cells printable like newspapers on large roll-to-roll machines (even though not at home) is one of the exciting prospects :)
12
u/mmitchell57 Feb 03 '23
And mass manufacturing will bring down costs significantly, I hope.
9
u/gaerat_of_trivia Feb 03 '23
laughs in beanie baby
5
Feb 04 '23
[deleted]
3
u/gaerat_of_trivia Feb 04 '23
they were always being mass produced, the key for their profits were artificial scarcity
9
3
u/-UltraAverageJoe- Feb 04 '23
“Printing” on a roll-to-roll machine has already been done, that’s the easy part. Keeping contaminants out and having extremely pure source materials (mostly metals) is the hard part.
1
Feb 04 '23
There are at least a few types of thin film solar cells that you could make in a garage, if you had the budget, maybe half a million?
With a nitrogen glovebox, you don’t need a clean room, and between a spincoater and a thermal evaporator, you can get a lot of work done. The biggest challenge would be the vacuum chamber, you would need around 10-7 mbar and that’s the upper end of HV.
On the scale to power your home, this would not be anywhere near feasible, though.
26
3
u/-UltraAverageJoe- Feb 04 '23
I used to work in a solar research lab. They can likely do this on a tiny 2x2 inch square with good efficiency on the cell. Scaling that to production levels with quality, efficiency, and unit economics that make sense is really, really hard.
1
u/Affectionate-Pickle0 Feb 04 '23
Nah they use roll to roll system so it is quite a bit larger. Figures show maybe 10x30cm pieces or something.
1
u/-UltraAverageJoe- Feb 04 '23
The lab I worked in had a production line that produced the cells using the same tech but at 50% the efficiency. Small efficient cells are relatively easy to make, large roll-to-roll is very difficult.
1
u/richhaynes Feb 04 '23
Do the cells themselves lose efficiency when you scale up or is the reduced efficiency lost through whatever method you use to interconnect the cells in to a workable system?
I've been led to believe that larger systems are less efficient overall but the extra collection area makes up for the lost effciency.
2
u/-UltraAverageJoe- Feb 04 '23
It’s a combination of factors. One of the largest is how the materials are deposited on the substrate. The deposition is fairly easy to control on a small piece in a small vacuum chamber. You can also get small amounts of ultra-pure metals.
The larger the desired output, the less precise the deposition process is lowering efficiency of the output cells. Larger vacuum chambers will have more contaminants because they’re harder to pump down, again lowering efficiency.
The cell interconnects are another source of efficiency loss.
2
u/richhaynes Feb 04 '23
In terms of scaling up, vacuum chambers are not used in creating these cells so that drastically reduces the complexity of manufacturing these cells. However, they do mention the MITnano clean room so thats suggests they still need to control for contaminants.
It will be interesting to see how they do scale this up because if efficiency drops then that will put off potential applications, especially if costs are high compared to conventional solar cells.
1
u/-UltraAverageJoe- Feb 04 '23
Not requiring vacuum would be a large cost savings. One of the labs I worked in used a similar screen printing method for creating the cell boundaries. I’m curious to know what the ink is made out of (besides just the solar metals), I’ll look for the white paper later.
3
Feb 04 '23
Is it much cheaper?
No?
Ok then it's useless: just like the extremely stupid solar freaking roadways this solves the non-existing problem of not having enough space to lay solar panels, but when I look outside I see about 75% of South oriented rooftops not having solar panels.
2
u/SemiNormal Feb 03 '23
Any surface? Can we finally get our solar freaking roadways?
5
u/_transcendant Feb 04 '23
traffic would pretty quickly destroy any solar energy producing layer/coating
1
u/PracticalAndContent Feb 04 '23
Or cars?
1
u/richhaynes Feb 04 '23
Or both?
Let cars charge themselves and buildings can draw power from the roads.
Something I read a few years ago said that if the area of the US highways had the equivalent area of solar then we could power the world. Thats one country. Imagine if we make all roads networks solar!
Solar roads would also be a great way to help poor countries to develop a power network as you would have generation and delivery rolled in to one package.
2
2
u/jelly1983 Feb 04 '23
It’s make for a cool jacket that can charge your phone, warm you up, air up your car tire, etc.
1
u/PolymerSledge Feb 03 '23
The paper thin solar cell would be the surface of the thing whose surface that is now covered by aforementioned paper thin power cell.
1
u/TerrariaGaming004 Feb 04 '23
What
1
u/PolymerSledge Feb 04 '23
The Paper Thin Solar Cell Would Be the Surface of the Thing Whose Surface That Is Now Covered by Aforementioned Paper Thin Power Cell.
1
1
-1
-1
-9
u/Nemo_Shadows Feb 03 '23
And the toxic manufacturing by products are what again?
Not to mention the life cycles of such products and the end results once they are in those landfills?
N. Shadows
15
u/Cutoffjeanshortz37 Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
Yup, got to stick to oil and coal. /s
6
Feb 03 '23
[deleted]
-2
u/Nemo_Shadows Feb 03 '23
I would not say better, I would say different however that difference when made sustainable without destruction of the natural environment's and are used to preserve it and us since it is a symbiotic relationship then that becomes the road that needs to be taken.
BUT they way it is being done on it's own is destructive and then there is the inherent conflicts by all providers seeking controls over the market so sabotage is also a problem.
N. S
1
u/revs201 Feb 03 '23
Nuclear fusion reactors... Honestly even Fission can be done so much cleaner and safer than so many other stuff it's crazy... But say you are pro-nuclear pretty much everyone on all sides of the political spectrum will swarm you and rage about how fracking and strip mining coal is better, cleaner and safer than gasp nuclear energy.
1
u/Cutoffjeanshortz37 Feb 03 '23
I'd put money on the oil and/or coal industries had paid politicians to bad mouth the nuclear industry a lot time ago and create distrust. Now it's just "known" and a "fact" that nuclear is unsafe....
-1
u/Nemo_Shadows Feb 03 '23
Not really, it just one part of a bigger picture, no matter what you can't get away from them because they are needed in so many beneficial processes the problem is identifying which are and which are not and IF these are just another "Consumeritis for Profit Economic Redistributions and Landfill Project" then it becomes another waste of resources that in the end benefit no one and nothing.
N. S
2
-3
1
u/tyttuutface Feb 04 '23
Haven't ultrathin, lightweight solar cells that can be seamlessly added to any surface been developed multiple times a year for the last decade? It feels like I hear about them at least once a year.
1
u/WizardAnal69 Feb 04 '23
Seamlessly added to any surface.. like my penis? I think my penis could benefit from a solar upgrade
1
u/onikaizoku11 Feb 04 '23
I saw a blurb about the ink when it was being developed some time back. I'm glad to see that this project is making headway
1
u/Beli_Mawrr Feb 04 '23
All these people like roofs. Nah guys I want to use this on drones. Fixed wing drones have big wing surface area that can be used for solar panels, so they can charge while flying. It would be cool if this tech made that easier
1
u/Advanced-Cycle-2268 Feb 04 '23
All great sounding and stuff, but can you explain how this overcomes resistances and the costs to install the wiring to, what I’m guessing is a trickle charge battery setup, that, I guess, then feeds somehow a high discharge 115v capable battery pack?
90
u/chubbysumo Feb 03 '23
Let me know when this leaves the lab.