Posted on 05/17/2011 9:36:31 AM PDT by dangerdoc
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Efficiency is a problem with today’s solar panels; they only collect about 20 percent of available light. Now, a University of Missouri engineer has developed a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 percent of available light, and he plans to make prototypes available to consumers within the next five years.
Patrick Pinhero, an associate professor in the MU Chemical Engineering Department, is developing a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 percent of available light. Today’s solar panels only collect 20 percent of available light. Patrick Pinhero, an associate professor in the MU Chemical Engineering Department, says energy generated using traditional photovoltaic (PV) methods of solar collection is inefficient and neglects much of the available solar electromagnetic (sunlight) spectrum. The device his team has developed – essentially a thin, moldable sheet of small antennas called nantenna – can harvest the heat from industrial processes and convert it into usable electricity. Their ambition is to extend this concept to a direct solar facing nantenna device capable of collecting solar irradiation in the near infrared and optical regions of the solar spectrum.
Working with his former team at the Idaho National Laboratory and Garrett Moddel, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Pinhero and his team have now developed a way to extract electricity from the collected heat and sunlight using special high-speed electrical circuitry. This team also partners with Dennis Slafer of MicroContinuum, Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., to immediately port laboratory bench-scale technologies into manufacturable devices that can be inexpensively mass-produced.
“Our overall goal is to collect and utilize as much solar energy as is theoretically possible and bring it to the commercial market in an inexpensive package that is accessible to everyone,” Pinhero said. “If successful, this product will put us orders of magnitudes ahead of the current solar energy technologies we have available to us today.”
As part of a rollout plan, the team is securing funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and private investors. The second phase features an energy-harvesting device for existing industrial infrastructure, including heat-process factories and solar farms.
Within five years, the research team believes they will have a product that complements conventional PV solar panels. Because it’s a flexible film, Pinhero believes it could be incorporated into roof shingle products, or be custom-made to power vehicles.
Once the funding is secure, Pinhero envisions several commercial product spin-offs, including infrared (IR) detection. These include improved contraband-identifying products for airports and the military, optical computing, and infrared line-of-sight telecommunications.
Awesome! If true I’d finally be able to get off the grid and actually afford it.
If solar panels were inexpensive, they would have been huge sellers by now. Not just among the hippies, but also among real, non-smelly people that just want to save a buck or two rather than pay it to the electric company.
5 years though? Heck, I’d like it on my roof tomorrow.
Efficiency is a major part of the problem with solar. If true this would be good news.
To quote Nigel Tufnel:
“It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.”
i hope this is not more empty promises. I’ve have seen so many of this type of articles that end no where.
As an augment, it'd be nice. It still wouldn't beat a footlocker size reactor in my backyard putting out enough power to run my entire households electrical needs for the next 30 years...
surely they should be able to give us a demonstration of this tech on their prototype right now, right?
It's a good thing wildlife and plants don't require sunlight, or it might be a problem.
usually this type of articles are just plea for more funding. And then when someone dumb enough do fund this project, its end up not as promised and the investor pull out, then the environmental community cry conspiracy by evil rich ppl and big oil companies against solar energy
Within five years, the research team believes they will have a product that complements conventional PV solar panels.
This is weasel-wording, pure and simple. If his technology is nearly 5 times as efficient, and as the article says can be cheaply manufactured, then there is no need for convential PV panels anymore, they are totally obsolete. So why would he say his project "complements" them?
Read between the lines and you can learn a lot of what is not being said here. That quote tells me there is some fatal flaw with this technology and the article is not revealing that flaw.
This should be enough of a clue that it's a scam.
That’s what I thought.
????
Capturing the light and then converting it to energy are two different things, unless the the tech is there to convert the energy then this can only complement existing tech.
Anyone remember the 320 MPG promotion of GM electric car? I was so excited when I heard about it. This was only a few years ago. Now look at it now. The car is a total junk. Their 320 MPG was exaggerated and the car too expensive and they don’t last long before you have to switch out for another expensive battery
“Once the funding is secure, ...”
As I suspected
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