Scientists Create Energy-Producing Solar Paint
A recent partnership between the steel industry and UK university researchers has led to the development of a unique photovoltaic paint that can be applied to steel.
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The paint is made up of dye and electrolytes that can be applied as a paste to steel sheets. Four layers of paint are applied to each sheet. When light hits the solar cells, excited molecules release an electron into an electron collector and circuit (nanocrystalline titanium dioxide). Finally, the electrons move back into the dye.
Photovoltaic paint has a number of advantages over traditional solar cells. It doesn’t have the material limitations of silicon solar cells, so it theoretically provides many terawatts of electricity at a low cost. Additionally, the paint can absorb light across the visible spectrum— so even cloudy days will reap lots of energy.
According to steel company Corus Colours, the solar cells can achieve a power conversion efficiency of 11 percent.
Production of solar paint will begin soon— a lab built to develop the new technology is starting work on October 30 in North Wales. Ultimately, researchers at the PV Accelerator Laboratory in North Wales hope to develop a way to apply solar paint to steel at 30 to 40 square meters per second.
I only wonder if solar paint will be available for purchase to consumers in the future— if so, it could easily lead to a do-it-yourself solar revolution.
Photo credit: Corus Colours
Sorry Warren Reynolds, but it doesn’t really matter if it takes 4x the area(and that 40% efficiency only comes with the BEST solar panels, so they are very expensive) because you can cover so much more of your house or building at a much lower cost. And there are ways to keep paint from peeling, but even if it did peel current solar panels lose at least 5% of their energy production each year, but they cost more. Face it, this is an incredible technology with practically no negative aspects.
The solar paint efficiency of 65-90% claimed by SunTCO is technically infeasible. Rest assure, if there were any credibility to these claims the world would be talking about it. But other than some vague BS posted on the SunTCO site and a few message board posts by Dr. Linman, no evidence that SunTCO has anything going for it at all exists - clearly all the characteristics of a fraudulent organization similar to XEthanol. And that’s of course why you, Rishiddh, will never get a straight answer from Dr. Linman to a straight question. Besides, at $2/W, who needs this? FSLR has already broken the $1/W threshold.
We have learned so much during our characterization process that we believe now reaching the $1.00/watt industry goal is achievable. At first I was certainly skeptical and possibly overly conservative in our posturing for good reason, but now through the use of some extraordinary equipment at the nano level we have been able to see exactly where we were and have now taken our work. So we are very pleased to report that our solar paint and coatings as a solid entrant into the solar power market to generate electric power to homes and building will occur shortly. Our journey started in 2004 , advanced in 2007, funded in 2009 and now hit our planned mark remains a great adventure. Thank you folks for all the letters.
I may hay a solution to appling solar paint to steal
please contact me at cgriffith@aol.com
photovoltic paint is a really good idea. Is PV paint expensive though?
photovolaic paint is great. is it expensive though?