S. Korean scientists develop highly efficient
plastic-based solar cell
SEOUL, Apr 27, 2009 -- Asia Pulse Data Source
South Korean scientists said Monday that they have created a highly
efficient plastic-based power cell that can speed up commercial use of solar
energy.
The team led by Lee Kwang-hee at the Gwangju Institute of Science and
Technology (GIST), said the solar cells are designed to mimic the
photovoltaic activities of plants, and reached an unprecedented energy
efficiency rate of 6.2 percent.
"This is the highest number reached by any single-layer plastic, organic
photovoltaic solar cell created in the world to date and should greatly help
commercial use of power generation using sunlight," the material science
professor at the state-run laboratory said. If fully developed the solar
cells, which can easily bend, could be attached to coats, bags, various
electronic appliances and building windows.
The breakthrough has been confirmed by the U.S. National Renewable Energy
Laboratory and published in the latest on-line international journal of
Nature Photonics.
Energy efficiency indicates the percentage of sunshine that solar cells turn
into electricity.
Lee's team's said they used a new material that have "open circuit voltage"
properties and titanium oxide to bring about high efficiency.
He added that under so-called green light conditions, the energy efficiency
of the new plastic power cells reached 17 percent, which is more than enough
to start commercial power generation. Experts said an efficiency rate of 7
percent must be reached for plastic solar cells to become commercially
viable.
Conventional inorganic silicon-based solar cells used in homes have an
efficiency rate of 7 to 8 percent, while very expensive panels placed on
satellites have numbers reaching 15 percent.
The technology, developed jointly with U.S. researchers led by Alan Heeger
of the University of California, Santa Barbara, is an extension of cutting
edge research carried out in the past.
The Lee-Heeger team announced in 2007 that they had built a stacked or
double-layered organic photovoltaic that had a power efficiency of 6.5
percent. The result was published in the journal Nature.
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