New discovery! Fruit can actually make low-cost solar cells

According to QuartzIndia, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology found that the pigments contained in South Asia's unique berry Jamun have the potential to reduce the cost of expensive solar panels, which means that India's long-term energy shortage can continue to improve. Researchers have experimented with this natural edible pigment called anthocyanin and concluded that large-scale production of such pigments can reduce the cost of solar panels.

Jamun is mainly produced in northern India. As long as you eat one, your tongue will even dye the color of Jamun.

“We studied why Jamun is black,” says Soumitra Satapathi, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology. “We extracted the pigment with ethanol and found that anthocyanins were able to absorb a lot of sunlight.” Anthocyanins also exist in blueberries. , fruits such as cranberries, raspberries and cherries.

The Jamun tree can be 30 meters long and has a life span of more than a hundred years. In India, this fruit of nutritional value and medicinal value can usually be bought at a low price on a street stall.

Most of the solar panels we use today are made of monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon. In contrast, polysilicon has good efficiency, but it is also more expensive. Satapathi, an assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute, is using Jamun's pigment to make another solar panel battery: dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC, dye-sensitised solar).

The working principle of solar cells is very simple. Solar cells contain electron-rich silicon or dye. When sunlight shines on solar devices, photons are absorbed. When electrons acquire photons, they generate electricity. Therefore, the amount of electricity generated by solar cells depends on its ability to absorb photons.

India has long been plagued by energy shortages and plans to increase its solar power capacity from 10 GW to 100 GW by 2022, while attracting $100 billion in capital to the field.

Despite the huge silicon resources of the earth and the high cost of producing silicon solar cells, Satapathi hopes to use solar pigments such as Jamun to produce more efficient solar cells while reducing the cost of a solar panel device by 40%.

But currently Satapathi's research project still needs a bigger breakthrough. The solar cell he developed is only 0.5% efficient, while the traditional commercial solar cell has more than 15% efficiency. Dye-sensitized solar cells were first introduced in 1988, but today, mainstream solar cell suppliers no longer use this type of technology, after all, the efficiency is too low.

UV Film and UV Curing Machine

Shenzhen Jianjiantong Technology Co., Ltd. , https://www.jjtbackskin.com