Sheffield project develops 'spray on' solar panels

摘要

Solar cells made using a process akin to spray painting have been developed by a research project at Sheffield and Cambridge universities. The method could potentially reduce the cost of solar cells significantly and perhaps one day be used on glass in buildings or car roofs. The research has created a method of spray-coating a photovoltaic active layer by an air-based process - similar to spraying regular paint from a can - to develop a cheaper technique which can be mass produced. Professor David Lidzey from Sheffield said: "We have shown that spray coating can be used to make solar cells using specially designed plastic semiconductors. The performance of our spray coated solar cells is the same as cells made with more traditional research methods, but which are impossible to scale in manufacturing. We now do most of our research using spray coating. "The goal is to reduce the amount of energy and money required to make a solar cell. This means that we need solar cell materials that have low embodied energy, but we also need manufacturing processes that are efficient, reliable and consume less energy."