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, 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.
This is an astonishing increase in solar cell light energy conversion, provided the 90 plus percent efficiency claim is accurate. If they can actually build an economical solar collector prototype, then this would be the game changer in solar renewable energy production. Combine that, with the nanotechnology related breakthroughs being made in battery and ultra-capacitor energy storage technologies, and the implications are truly enormous. To read the rest of the article, click here.