Printable micro-liquid solar cells come out

US scientists said that they recently developed a cheap and stable liquid solar cells. The battery, made of nanocrystals, is "very petite" and thus can be in the form of liquid ink that can be printed or applied to the surface of a clean substrate. The latest research published in the British Royal 6-meter-high price of solar energy home chemical society published in the international inorganic chemistry journal "Dalton Journal".

University of Southern California scientists developed 6 m rural solar street light This solar cell using nanocrystals made of semiconductor cadmium selenide, the size of about 4 nm, which means that a needle can be placed on the 250 billion, and its also Can float in a liquid solution. "Like printing newspapers, we can also print solar cells," said Richard Butcher, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California at the University of Southern California, who led the study.

Although liquid crystalline nanocrystalline solar cells are cheaper to manufacture than single-crystal silicon solar cells, which are widely used today, the photoelectric conversion efficiency is somewhat inferior. However, in the latest study, the researchers overcome the manufacturing of liquid solar cells face a key problem: how to create a stable and conductive liquid.

Previously, scientists needed to have organic ligand molecules attached to nanocrystals to keep the nanocrystals stable and prevent the two from sticking together. However, these organic ligand molecules will also be isolated from the crystal, so that the overall system of the conductive properties become very poor. "This has been a major challenge in this area," said Bucher.

To this end, Boucher and University of Southern California postdoctoral researcher David Webber developed a new surface coating for this nanocrystal. The new synthetic ligands not only perform well in stabilizing nanocrystals, but they also transform themselves into tiny "bridges" that connect nanocrystals and help them transfer current.

In addition, through a relatively low temperature, does not require any process related to melting, scientists can be this liquid too inverter solar cells printed on the plastic rather than the glass surface, and ultimately get a flexible solar panels , Its shape can be installed on-demand change in any place.

He next plans to use other materials, not toxic cadmium, to make nanocrystals, he said. "While it's going to take several years to commercialize this technology, it's clear that this technology can be seamlessly integrated with the next generation of solar cell technology," he said.

Regardless of the status of the global PV industry over the past two years, simply on the technical line, the crystal silicon still firmly occupy the leading status of photovoltaic rivers and lakes, therefore, a thin film technology is basically the same as printing newspapers, Battery technology, at this stage looks like the edge of the wheel of a wobble boat. However, just as many years ago, few people believe that rely on the sun can generate electricity, as if the liquid photovoltaic cells continue to break this as the current material, structure and photoelectric conversion efficiency problems, the future of commercial prospects or inestimable. After all, it has a range of applications in crystalline silicon cells do not have the breadth and flexibility, while the natural cost advantage, but also the latter efforts can not match a long time.