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| Posted Jan 19, 2005 PT |
Solar power breakthrough uses plastic, not panels
A recently invented plastic can convert solar power into electricity much faster than any other current method. The University of Toronto researchers who came up with the new material say it could conceivably be turned into any number of revolutionary products like clothing that automatically recharges cell phones or other electronic gadgets.
See more articles like this one at www.SolarFactor.com
Original news summary: (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1105319242587_49?hub=SciTech)
- Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that's five times more efficient at turning the sun's power into electrical energy than current methods.
- The discovery could lead to shirts and sweaters capable of recharging our cellphones and other wireless devices, said Ted Sargent, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university.
- Sargent and other researchers combined specially-designed minute particles called quantum dots, three to four nanometres across, with a polymer to make a plastic that can detect energy in the infrared.
- Infrared light is not visible to the naked eye but it is what most remote controls emit, in small amounts, to control devices such as TVs and DVD players.
- It also contains a huge untapped resource -- despite the surge in popularity of solar cells in the 1990s, we still miss half of the sun's power, Sargent said.
- "In fact, there's enough power from the sun hitting the Earth every day to supply all the world's needs for energy 10,000 times over,'' Sargent said in a phone interview Sunday from Boston.
- Sargent said the new plastic composite is, in layman's terms, a layer of film that "catches'' solar energy.
- "We've done the same thing, but not with something that just sit there on the wall the way paint does,'' said the Ottawa native.
- While that may sound like a Star Trek dream, venture capitalists are keen to Sargent's invention.
- Josh Wolfe, managing partner at Lux Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, said while such a luxury may be five years away, the technology knows no bounds.
- Sargent's work was published in the online edition of Nature Materials on Sunday and will appear in its February issue.
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