Researchers at RMIT report a 30% increase in efficiency for low-cost solar cell technology which could be integrated into building materials.
Researchers at RMIT have reported a significant increase in efficiency for a particular low-cost type of solar cell which is well suited for integration into building materials like walls and windows.
The report, published in the research journal ACS Nano, outlines a 30% improvement in the performance of dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs) – a dye coated semiconducter that acts as a low-cost alternative to silicon cells, which can easily be incorporated into building materials.
“This kind of solar cell is considered the third generation of solar cells,”, explains Associate Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh. Their work substitutes titania, which is normally used for these types of solar cells, with a metal called niobia. “Our work suggests that niobia can be used as the star material in DSSCs and provides a viable solution to boost the conversion efficiency to the values that far exceed that of silicon-based solar cells”.
The breakthrough represents a significant increase in efficiency. In their current form, DSSCs achieve about 8 percent efficiency – and this figure is pushed past 10 percent with the new research. Silicon-based solar cells achieve about a 15 percent – a figure that researchers hope could be surpassed with further refinements to the DSSC technology.
Source: ABC Science
