Scientists have achieved a new efficiency record for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs), opening up new commercial possibilities for transparent solar panels.
A team from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland made the breakthrough using specially designed photosensitizer dye molecules that when combined are able to harvest light from the entire visible light spectrum.
The transparent properties of DSCs make them suitable for use in windows, greenhouses and glass facades, the researchers said, as well as screens in portable electronic devices.
They are also flexible, relatively low-cost and can be produced using conventional roll-printing techniques. In theory, the price/performance ratio is also high enough to allow them to compete with fossil fuel electrical generation.
The first commercial applications have already been realized, with dye-sensitized solar windows installed at the SwissTech Convention Center, although their capacity for generating electricity is currently limited due to their lack of efficiency compared to traditional solar cells.
The latest development pushes the power conversion efficiency to between 28.4-30.2 percent, while still maintaining the long-term operational stability of the 500-hour test.
“Our findings pave the way for easy access to high-performance DSCs and offer promising prospects for applications such as power supply and battery replacement for low-power electronic devices that use ambient light as their energy source,” the authors wrote in a study detailing the technology. .
The study, titled ‘Hydroxamic acid preadsorption raises efficiency of cosensitized solar cells’, was published in the scientific journal NATURE on Wednesday.