A team of researchers has improved the efficiency of perovskite solar panels, an alternative to costly silicon-based panels. While not yet perfected, the concept is becoming more and more viable, Tech Xplore reported.
There's a lot of science going on inside solar cells, which means there's also a lot of ways they can be improved. In this study, published in the Nature Communications journal, researchers placed a unique blend of polymers (chemistry-speak for a large molecule), between the perovskite and the layer where light is absorbed, Tech Xplore explained.
Simply put, using this new polymer positively changed how the cell's chemistry behaved. More specifically, it better controlled where ions could be present and where they could travel. This allowed the process of generating electricity from light to be more stably aligned, and the cell cracked a 26.39% efficiency rate as a result, per Tech Xplore.
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The cost of installation 💵 The new configuration's success hardly declined after running for 1,100 hours too, effectively proving its durability. These results were achieved by a cross-institutional team of solar engineers from Huaqiao University, two chemists from the City University of Hong Kong, and a colleague from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to Tech Xplore.
Such a strong showing of perovskite's performance is a promising sign for someday introducing the technology to solar products en masse. Having more options in the solar market is good news for consumers interested in cutting costs with their own panels, and for the planet too, which benefits from each house no longer using dirty fuel sources to get power.
There are still problems to solve with alternatives to silicon like this one, from scaling up the production process to making it affordable. When those are remedied, though, there's a good chance the strength of the cell itself will be ready, especially if research continues to rapidly raise the bar.
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