New iJET Solar Cell is as Easy to Make as Pizza
An Australian scientist has developed a new method of manufacturing solar cells using nothing more than some nail polish remover, a pizza oven and a standard inkjet printer.
The iJET technique is so easy and cheap to carry out that it could revolutionize access to solar technology in the developing world.
In a recent radio interview (audio), Nicole Kuepper, a 23 year-old PhD student at the University of New South Wales, explained the process.
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Firstly, she takes a standard silicon solar cell and sprays it with a substance similar to nail polish. Then, she inkjet prints something like nail polish remover onto the wafer in a set pattern in the same way that you’d print a normal photo. This enables the creation of high-resolution patterns on the cell at a very low cost. The cell is then metallized with an aluminum spray and baked at a very low temperature of around 550 fahrenheit in “something like a pizza oven.”
Kuepper went on to explain how solar cells are currently manufactured using expensive “high-tech, high-cleanliness equipment,” too costly for many countries in the developing world, adding, “we’re trying to do away with all of that so that so we can ensure that these solar cells can actually be manufactured in a developing country’s environment that you might find in say Ghana or Laos for example.”
Image Credit - Mulad via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license
so, essentially, its more like making a pizza from a frozen, pre-packaged pizza..
IF you actually listen to the audio broadcast although she says it requires a solar cell, her next sentence actually describes just a raw silicon wafer. So its more like making a pizza from frozen dough, rather than an already made pizza. For those who don’t know, a silicon wafer by itself will not generate electricity, I’m guessing the idea is that you could ship large volumes of silicon wafers (including ones scrapped from the semiconductor industry) to the third world, and this technology would allow them to convert it to solar cells for power generation. Interesting idea, although I’d like to see the efficiency of the devices.
Looking forward to seeing this released. Our parents rely on solar power and need to update their panels soon, and we are looking to set up a container holiday home on our bush block soon - solar powered also.
I heard of this on the radio and wanted more info so I looked it up.
I can not see how any “third world” counrties would have any sloar cells laying around along with the nail polish and such.
In fact, I do not have any sloar cells laying around here in this “first world” nation I live in - the United States of America!
Do I find one at the local transfer station?
OK you happy campers.
go here “Forming openings to semiconductor layers of silicon solar cells by inkjet printing” :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V51-4T0FHPP-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f1e435afdaa456bd4ee6be8a925b43c8
and here “(WO/2007/059578) HIGH EFFICIENCY SOLAR CELL FABRICATION”:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2007059578&IA=AU2006001773&DISPLAY=DESC
try google yourself and you will learn more.
Wow, yea. High Efficiency Solar Cell Fabrication. Try doing that process on top your mud hut. Just add a modern semiconductor wafer fab for about 1 billion and voila, instant efficient solar cells for developing countries. LOL.
After listening to the audio I would give her the benefit of the doubt that she did not mean you have to start with a functional solar cell but rather with a slice of the silicon wafer that is used as raw material. But what she describes is simply the addition of aluminum metal in some unknown pattern on a silicon surface. I don’t know of any way for that to generate electricity. Where is the other electrode? Where is the pn junction that is part of all solar cells? And where are these 3rd world people supposed get raw silicon wafers? Heck, I can’t imagine where I’d get one myself. You have to buy them in bulk to buy them here in the US.
John
The trouble with articles like these is that they seemed to be written by people who don’t even know what kind of questions to ask. Like how efficient, why it starts with a solar cell, what kind of comparable costs.
I wish writers had a little more background in hard sciences.
Heck we could use some of them here in US, not just in developing countries. D
where do i get the solar cell stater with to make a solar cell and how much is the pizza oven