Another Revolutionary Solar Energy Breakthrough

by Robert Wilkinson

This one is huge! Imagine solar cells able to convert sunlight to electricity the way plants convert sunlight via photosynthesis!

This seems to be the time when solar is busting loose! Along with two major recent solar energy breakthroughs I reported on back in May, thanks to a friend of the site we now read an article on Trueactivist.com by Jonathan Benson titled Organic solar cells that collect energy like plants that US and UK scientists “have made a breakthrough discovery with regards to solar technology that could revolutionize the way we harvest light for energy. Known as organic solar technology, special cells designed to convert light into energy in the same way that plants do via photosynthesis are set to become a whole lot more efficient as a result of some new tweaks, which means their potential for inexpensive, large-scale use is soon on the horizon.”

From the article:

This is where researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Washington may have come up with a viable solution. After using a special, laser-based technology to carefully evaluate the way electrons function inside organic solar cells, the multinational team learned some electrons devolve into a catatonic state where they no longer possess energy. Some electrons fall into this “hole,” they found, as a result of variant “spin.”

... ’Spin’ is a property of particles related to their angular momentum, with electrons coming in two flavors, ‘spin-up’ or ‘spin-down,’...After pinning down how electrons normally function within an organic solar cell, effectively keeping conversion efficiency rates low, the team figured out that electron spin can be altered to improve these rates...

Though “organic” in name, the new technology still requires the use of synthetic, high-performance polymer materials to capture and convert light. But the good news is that the materials needed for the cells can be produced relatively quickly and inexpensively, which will put them more in reach of the general population on an average family budget.

There’s more at the source article, so by all means go over and check it out. In that article you’ll find links to more sources for this information, including the University of Washington, Science Daily, and Natural News. Good stuff! It would seem the era of Light energy is just around the corner, which will make the polluting technologies of the 19th and 20th centuries obsolete within our lifetimes. And that’s a very good thing.

While it likely will take some decades before the oil and coal industries are out of business, we can still encourage these types of breakthroughs, since it’s our future. Oil, coal, and nukes are obsolete!

Copyright © 2013 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[H]

HooOOray... :) Delighted to here this & past solar reports. Thanks for passing on Robert.

[Micheline]

This will make it so much easier for all of humanity to convert to at least one source of renewable energy! This is fantastic news!!!! Thanks for posting this!

[SSI]

Yeah of course solar panels convert sun energy in to electric energy. It is good for our nature because it doesn't generate harmful gases.