Six years ago, a team of engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Organic Electronics and Nanostructures Laboratory (ONE Lab) developed a solar cell thin enough to fit on a soap bubble. The demands and costs of construction, although impressive, unfortunately do not allow the plans to be implemented on a large scale. However, this week ONE Labs unveiled a new solar cell material that is extremely thin, weighs 100 times less than traditional panels, and potentially produces 18 times more electricity per kilogram than traditional solar technology. Not only that, but the production method shows promising potential for scalability and mass production.
As explained in a press release from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the fragility of protected solar cells requires thick glass and aluminum cases to protect them, which limits versatility and applications. Using semiconductor ink printed on a material thinner than a human hair, the team was able to attach the panels to a layer of Dyneema, an ultra-lightweight security compound that weighs just 13 grams per square metre. The resulting micron-thick films can be laminated to a variety of surfaces and materials, such as the outside of a tent to generate power during disaster relief operations, or the wings of drones to increase potential flight time.
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Despite the ultra-miniature design, the new material offers plenty of storage space. Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, group paper co-author and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science, spoke to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and presented a standard rooftop solar system as a comparison. “A typical rooftop solar system in Massachusetts has about 8,000 watts of power,” explains Saravanapavanantham. “To achieve the same power, our textile photovoltaic cells will add only 20 kg of weight to the roof of the house.”
Durability is also a key component of any viable solar cell line, a feature that the ONE Lab team demonstrated in their new design by rolling the fabric up and down over 500 times, resulting in less than 10 percent of potential energy production being lost.
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Unfortunately, the impressive MIT sundress isn't ready to be sewn onto your outfit just yet. The team is still looking for a suitable material to package the product - since the elements are made from carbon-based organic materials, exposure to natural moisture and oxygen in the air causes rapid degradation.
“We are working to extract as much non-solar active material as possible while maintaining the form factor and characteristics of these ultralight and flexible solar structures,” paper co-author Jeremiah Mwaura told the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. . Once this problem is solved, solar particles can reach countless surfaces to bring much-needed renewable green electricity into everyday life.
