Balls and Cubes

Solar cells. Fuel cells. They may be the shape of things to come. But some shapes are better than others, apparently.

It was found recently that a "popcorn-ball" design has increased the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells. They are cheaper, but only half as efficient, as existing solar technology. A group at the University of Washington has been working on this. They used a mixture of small (15 nanometers) and large (300 nanometers) particles of zinc oxide, and found an increase in efficiency, from 2.4 percent using only small particles to 6.2 percent with the combination. The next step is to do it with titanium oxide, which currently gives an 11% efficiency, and see how much of an increase can be achieved with that material. Read about it here.

While ball shapes are good for solar cells, apparently you want your fuel cells in a cubic shape according to researchers at Brown.

Two great obstacles to hydrogen-powered vehicles lie with fuel cells. Fuel cells, which like batteries produce electrical power through chemical reactions, have been plagued by their relatively low efficiency and high production costs. Scientists have tested a wide assortment of metals and materials to overcome the twin challenge.

Now a team led by Shouheng Sun, professor of chemistry at Brown, has mastered a Rubik’s Cube-like dilemma for dealing with platinum, a precious metal coveted for its ability to boost a chemical reaction in fuel cells. The team shows that shaping platinum into a cube greatly enhances its efficiency in a phase of the fuel cell’s operation known as oxygen reduction reaction. Sun’s results have been published online in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The paper was selected as a Very Important Paper, a distinction reserved for less than 5 percent of manuscripts submitted to the peer-reviewed journal.

This brings us another step closer to the future as envisioned by Ray Kurzweil. By the way, I came across a talk by him he gave at a TED conference, here.

Solar Power to Rule in 20 Years

There has been more and more talk about renewable energy sources being needed, in order to cut CO2 emissions from burning coal and oil. Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology discussed solar energy in that book, and still believes it is the future source for our energy needs. From LiveScience:

Solar and wind power currently supply about 1 percent of the world's energy needs, Kurzweil said, but advances in technology are about to expand with the introduction of nano-engineered materials for solar panels, making them far more efficient, lighter and easier to install. Google has invested substantially in companies pioneering these approaches.

Regardless of any one technology, members of the panel are "confident that we are not that far away from a tipping point where energy from solar will be [economically] competitive with fossil fuels," Kurzweil said, adding that it could happen within five years.

The reason why solar energy technologies will advance exponentially, Kurzweil said, is because it is an "information technology" (one for which we can measure the information content), and thereby subject to the Law of Accelerating Returns.

The 1% figure is a bit misleading. The US in 2006 got 0.7% from wind and only 0.1% from solar. But that still projects to 100% for solar, if it continues to double at the current rate.

Wide spread use of solar isn't something we'll see anytime soon. But, some interesting new technology is being developed that should make them more cost effective. How about printing them?

Massachusetts-based Konarka Technologies, Inc, a company with a healthy history of commercial experience, developed and demonstrated a commercial-grade process for printing cells on inkjet printers. All quips about inkjet cartridge costs aside, the new process holds tremendous potential to revolutionize the solar photovoltaic industry.

Typical photovoltaics require a clean room to maintain the delicate manufacturing conditions necessary in order to carry out silicon spin coating and other steps in the manufacturing process. These clean rooms are extremely expensive to build and maintain. While traditional photovoltaics can be profitable, Konarka's inkjet phtovoltaics promise to dramatically lower their cost, making solar power suddenly very competitive in terms of energy production per installation cost. Better yet, it will likely reduce the time it takes to produce the cells and allow for easier expansion of capacity.

Interesting times may be ahead.