Scientists have invented a transparent solar panel Bashny.Net

A group of researchers from the University of Michigan has developed the world's first completely transparent solar panel. Breakthrough technology soon will turn windows and even entire buildings in electric generators. Until now, solar collectors could do only partially transparent. Usually they look like tinted glass. However, the new invention is not distinguished from a normal window glass.




All previous attempts to create a fully transparent solar generator encountered a serious problem. After all, the transparency of the material means that it must pass through a nearly full sunlight. That's why it was not possible to develop transparent solar cell - so that the solar panels generate electricity by absorbing and converting photons into electrons. And if the material is transparent, the photons pass through it freely, without being absorbed and turning into electrons.

To create a truly transparent solar cell, scientists at Michigan State University have proposed a fundamentally new invention, which they called "transparent luminescent solar concentrator '(PLSK). As part of the material has organic salts that absorb light waves, not visible to the human eye - ultraviolet and infrared. So scientists have been able to avoid the absorption of the visible spectrum, that is, reducing the transparency of the material.

PLSK reflects absorbed stream of infrared and ultraviolet waves on a thin tape which surrounds the perimeter of the panel. This tape is made of normal (opaque) solar cell, which subsequently converts the waves into electricity.

Previous translucent solar collectors showed marginal efficiency of about 7%. PLSK Michigan can reach efficiency of 5% (at current test items show only 1%). Although these numbers seem insignificant on the scale of the whole building total capacity of the battery will be more significant.

Researchers from the University of Michigan believe that their development can be used as an industrial scale, and in ordinary consumer devices. Further work of scientists will aim to improve the performance of solar cells and reducing their cost to the technology finally became available, and solar energy continued to grow.

Author: Nail Bainazarov