At the EuroNanoForum conference held in Malta last week, the Poland-based Saule Technologies described how it is using nanotechnology to create extremely thin solar cells that could greatly expand the capabilities of solar power technology.
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Company Co-founder Artur Kupczunas described how the solar power technology being developed by his team is producing slim layers of solar cells, with the thickness of around one-tenth of a human hair. Made from perovskite crystals, an inexpensive and highly-sensitive mineral first discovered in 1839. The solar cells could significantly lower the costs of generating solar energy while allowing for any surface to be converted into a solar panel, from walls to the back of a smartphone.
The most interesting factor is the (reduction of) overall costs.
Artur Kupczunas, Saule Technologies Co-founder
Kupczunas added that the technology could easily be scaled up and marketed.
Speaking at the same session, Alejandro Pérez-Rodríguez, from the department of electronics at the University of Barcelona, said solar power and photovoltaic (PV) technology should now essentially be considered a kind of nanotechnology.
“In all PV technologies and devices we put some nanotechnology,” said Pérez-Rodríguez. “If we want to move to devices with higher functionality, lower weight, higher flexibility, different colours, then we need to integrate more nanotechnologies into their materials and architecture.”
Also at the same session, John Bøgild Hansen, from the Danish chemical engineering company Haldor Topsøe discussed how examining gases at the atomic level has allowed his company to develop a clean energy biofuel cell. The company's system removes pure hydrogen from plant materials while recycling any carbon dioxide emissions produced during the production sequence, to power the sequence itself and keep any greenhouse gasses from entering the atmosphere.
This novel process developed by Haldor Topsøe, Hansen said, is an approach to ‘break the bottleneck’ on biofuels, which have not been receiving much public or private backing.
If we want the conveniences we have today from liquid energy carriers (oil, natural gas etc.) for transport … hydrocarbons (biogas) are the best.
John Bøgild Hansen, Haldor Topsøe
In addition to solar power and biofuel, nanotechnology is also being used to store energy generated by renewable resources, like solar and wind. Because the sun isn’t always shining and the wind isn’t always blowing, excess energy generated during sunny or windy days must be stored and used when needed, in order to make this technology viable.
In an attempt to create batteries for renewable energy storage, Researchers at Sweden’s Linköping University are using nanotechnology to manipulate the molecular properties of a plastic conductive material known as PEDOT:PSS. The Researchers are trying to apply the findings of their research to nanocellulose, a product made from plants or oil, in an effort to develop an organic substance capable of storing energy.
“If we make a (PEDOT:PSS) battery the size of a refrigerator it can store (enough energy for) the needs of a family in a house or an apartment for a day,” Magnus Berggren, part of the Linköping University team, told Horizon Magazine, a publication of the European Commission.
Due to its capacity to charge swiftly, a battery made from such material might be a viable approach to manage the varying nature of wind and solar energy production, Berggren said.
At one of the other sessions in the Malta nanotechnology conference, Joe Murphy, from the recycling advocacy group The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, talked about how nanotechnology could also be used to create products that can be recycled more easily than contemporary products.
At the moment we have a lot of barriers to recycling … nanotechnology may enable us to do more.
Joe Murphy, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
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