Solar Cells Made From a Spreadable Nanoparticle Paste 66
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Notre Dame have created a nanoparticle paste, which acts as the main ingredient in solar cells that are very easy to construct. In a short video clip, they can be seen assembling a functional solar cell with little more than a heat gun, tape, and some binder clips. The paste is made from a mix of t-butanol, water, and a mix of cadmium selenide with cadmium sulfide nanoparticles. So far, the experimental devices are not nearly as efficient as standard solar cells, but they were just developed. If the materials were slightly less toxic, it might even be a project that kids could do at home."
Similar to the dye sensitized solar cell kit (Score:3, Interesting)
I build this kit as a solar cell demo for my school a few weeks ago. The article has a very different chemistry, but the assembly is almost identical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17SsOKEN5dE
Could be better (Score:4, Interesting)
Solar paint is fine, but there's a whole lot of energy that could be gathered with solar pavement. Just think of all those blacktop parking lots, if those had a 1% solar energy conversion you could probably make mini-malls power grid neutral.
Very easy [Re:How slightly are we talking abou...] (Score:5, Interesting)
"If the materials were slightly less toxic, it might even be a project that kids could do at home."
It's easy to make cad sulfide/copper sulfide solar cells at home-- it takes little more work than dipping a penny in a cad sulfide plating solution. Making not-very-efficient solar cells at home is really nothing new. As long as you don't drink the plating solution, it's not terribly dangerous.
(main reason cadmium sulfide/copper sulfide solar cells never really caught on is lifetime-- they degrade quickly if there's any humidity at all. I don't think I've heard of anybody making them since about 1980.)
Cadmium? (Score:3, Interesting)