Graphene Solar Panels 2017

Graphene has been developed as a non reflective coating for solar cells so the application of graphene to solar panels is not new news.

Graphene solar panels 2017. In this video we look at how the miracle material graphene is helping to improve solar cells. It is extremely strong and almost entirely transparent and also astonishingly conductive and flexible. Graphene and solar panels. There are a number of variations of heterojunction solar cells and how graphene derivatives can be added into them including as photoactive layers transparent electrode and galliumarsenide gaas solar cells.

In general solar cells are not that efficient. Nanotech says that their graphene panel reaches a 92 efficiency compared to around 20 for large commercial silicon based pv panels and the cost per watt of their panel will be 0 55 cents compared to a us average of 3 26 for silicon pv panels. Graphene is not only being used as a transparent and flexible e. It is a 2 dimensional material with amazing characteristics which grant it the title wonder material.

However recent advances in graphene based solar cells have seen the reflectance of solar rays reduced by 20 which provides a potential efficiency increase up to 20. This is because the charge collecting wire mesh that lies on top of the pv panel busbars fingers inter connectors blocks some amount of radiation falling on the silicon p n chip. Photovoltaic solar cells made of organic compounds would offer a variety of advantages over today s inorganic silicon solar cells. The ability to use graphene instead is making possible truly flexible low cost transparent solar cells that can turn virtually any surface into a source of electric power.

Graphene is made of a single layer of carbon atoms that are bonded together in a repeating pattern of hexagons. There are currently many different variations of graphene based solar cells being researched today. The future of solar cell efficiency it is anticipated that in 2017 and in the years to follow graphene will play a major role in raising the panel efficiency. A team scientists in china have found an ingenious way to take solar panels beyond sunny weather and into the rain.

Recent progress in the field of carbon graphene technology has opened the door to the possibility of all weather graphene solar panels that can keep making electricity for your home even through a torrential downpour. Graphene heterojunction solar cells are definitely the most extensively studied and used graphene based solar cell. July 31 2017 novel technique using graphene to create solar cells by nancy w.