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Solar Cells — Made In a Pizza Oven
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Aug 21, 2008 07:46 AM
from the because-you-can dept.
from the because-you-can dept.
stylemessiah writes "The winner of several Eureka Science Awards in Australia is a crafty chick who devised a way to create solar cells cheaply using a pizza oven, nail polish and an inkjet printer. This was developed to address the high cost of cells and in particular for the world's poorest regions. She wanted to give the ~2 billion people around the world who don't have electricity the gift of light and cheap energy. This could have profound (and a good profound) implications for education and health in those in the poorest regions in the world. And it all started with her parents giving her a solar energy kit when she was 10..."
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Competitive with Nanosolar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Competitive with Nanosolar? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but this one is wayyy cool because I'm fairly certain she came up with it after watching an episode of MacGyver....
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Re:Competitive with Nanosolar? (Score:5, Funny)
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how many (Score:5, Funny)
Re:how many (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not so much the number of cells you'd need to power the oven, that's important. It's whether or not one oven load of cells could produce more energy over the entire lifetime of the cells than the energy it took to bake them.
I have no idea oft he numbers involved myself, but put like that, it doesn't seem nearly so ridiculous. Hell, the cells might still be worth making, even if you loose power on the deal; just think of them as very long life batteries.
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Re:how many (Score:4, Insightful)
To respond to your other point.. do you mean functional lifetime or projected lifetime? I can easily see them in their projected lifetime compensating for the energy used to bake them. However, their functional lifetime may be significantly lower than projected, either due to natural disasters or the onset of Armageddon.
I'm being serious. Funny mods will not be appreciated. -Eric
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Re:how many (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, don't feed the trolls. Sorry.
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Re:how many (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, but this is a case of that energy cost not being wasted cost - if you're doing this in a building that needs heating, there's your heat source. It's a furnace for the building, and it makes solar panels. Two uses for that same energy. As long as you don't remove the panels from the building while they're still hot, you haven't wasted _any_ energy in making them.
Co-generation has been around for a while - another example would be running the radiator for your generator into the house, blow air through it. What would have been waste heat, now gets dumped into the space where it's useful.
A lot of these "studies" that claim to look at how much something costs, consider just how much fuel it takes to run the oven or whatever, and don't consider the possibility of uses of "waste heat" like this. So yes, more piggybacking on your post than disagreeing with it - the payback time you mention might be even sooner, if they were gonna burn that fuel to heat the place anyway.
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Re:how many (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:how many (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition to that, the oven could be modified to either be fully heated or at least preheated by a solar concentrator.
Solar thermal is a LOT cheaper and easier than solar photovoltaic. The problem is that concentrator-based designs can't work in clouds, while PV and nonconcentrated can. Nonconcentrated thermal doesn't work well for electrical energy generation. (Great for hot water heating though.)
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Re:how many (Score:5, Insightful)
How many solar cells do you need to power a pizza oven, anyway?
How about two sticks and some kindling [wikipedia.org]?
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Yeah but... (Score:5, Funny)
MacGyver would have done it with just the nail polish.
energy crisis finally solved! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:energy crisis finally solved! (Score:5, Funny)
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Chick? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Chick? (Score:5, Funny)
And yes, I'm male.
*checks URL* Yep, still Slashdot.
Mod parent redundant! :P
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Re:Chick? (Score:5, Funny)
You can't be sure with DNS these days...
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Re:Chick? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chick isn't inherently derogatory on the part of the speaker. i use it to mean 'a female who is neither a girl, nor an old lady'. My girlfriend uses it the same way. Think of it as the English equivalent to Mademoiselle. On it's own it is as derogatory as dude. If the speaker uses it as a pejorative or to be dismissive, that it the speaker, not the word. People can do that with any word. Just as anything can be taken too far or misused. Put in the hands of humans and something bad might happen. If a listener takes offense when none is intended, that's on the listener. Sometimes people LIKE to be offended. They get off on it. Some people act offended to impress their friends, or some chick at the bar. "Oh, he's a feminist".
And it is odd that we make special note of achievement when a 'minority' does something. For some reason we care that [person] is the first [label] to do something. If a white guy does something, so what? If it is novel that someone of x group did something, like say, a child composing a concerto, then sure... mention away. Otherwise i think by now we as a culture should be over it. Never underestimate the power of guilt.
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Re:Chick? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know what part of the world the submitter is from, but round here (South Africa) calling someone a "chick" is no more or less offensive or degrading than calling a man a "guy". Minor cultural difference, but it does make a lot of these "OMG Sexism" comments a bit confusing.
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Re:Chick? (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, Al. [imdb.com]
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Re:Chick? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously...the notion that there are bad words to use is mindboggling.
Is that so, asshole?
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Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it would of been more impressive if full details were diclosed online for people to take advantage of.
Is it possible to have your patent cake and eat it? The woman is clearly a brilliant engineer and deserves full credit for her work, she also states a worthwhile desire to help people across the world. So is it possible for her to obtain full commercial protection for her invention and then release all the details free for non-commercial use and reduced license fees for the third world? This would be ideal.
After all, no technology is going to change the lifestyles of poor people if they cannot afford to buy/license it.
On the other hand it would be unfair if she learned the Trevor Bayliss lesson the hard way - really clever little gadget swamped by low cost clones from asia from which he gained not a penny. As always I guess the big winners were the lawyers.
More info (Score:5, Informative)
When asked to describe the process she says "To pattern the cell we spray on something like nail polish and then inkjet print a kind of nail polish remover which lets us etch certain parts of the wafer. This creates a metallisation pattern so we can deposit aluminium on the back surface of the solar cell and create our metal contacts to both the P and N-type silicon simultaneously using a very cheap, low temperature pizza oven! And hey presto we've created a simple, low-cost solar cell without having to use expensive high tech equipment or high temperature processes!"
(from here [amonline.net.au])
You almost had me.... (Score:5, Funny)
"The winner of several Eureka Science Awards in Australia is a crafty chick who devised a way to create solar cells cheaply using a pizza oven, nail polish and an inkjet printer."
Afforable but uses an Inkjet Printer? You almost fooled me there. With the cost of ink being what it is, it'll be cheaper to just go out and buy a solar cell.
sterling (Score:5, Insightful)
headline:
female: "crafty chick turns out clever "invention", wants to "help people" - awwww!"
hypothetical:
male: "a thrifty, socially motivated boy genius has turned industry on its head with an astounding demonstration of scientific innovation and prowess beyond his years."
For those who like to watch... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nominee video of Nicole Kuepper [abc.com.au]
Vodcast of People's Choice awards ceremony [abc.com.au] (Look for ep 26, 2008)
Pity they did not print the details (Score:4, Interesting)
If you do a little digging, you find there is far less to this story than you might think.
All the lady did is develop a simple way of printing electrical contacts onto the silicon surface.
That's a mighty small part of the overall cell's cost. It's not going to bring cell prices down so the "2 billion" can afford them. heck, the top 2 billion can't afford them.
Re:Pity they did not print the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Link us up, bro'! Or are you just poo-pooing any progress in reducing the cost of solar cells yet again [slashdot.org]? Yeah, I did a little digging. ;-)
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Not so altruistic? (Score:4, Insightful)
First quote:
"I love working with passionate people who want to help address climate change and poverty"
Second quote:
"it could take five years to commercialise the patented technology"
I can give the poor of the world energy ... (Score:5, Insightful)
for a lot cheaper. All I need is a bunch of guys with shovels, and a boat, and we can give the world's poor good old coal. It's our environmental priorities, which we choose, that make energy more expensive. If we all could tolerate soot filled cities, like London in 1880, we could have dirt cheap heat and light and electricity just by burning coal and sometimes making steam with it for power.
The point is, when people make announcements like this, its not to give poor people the most energy, it is rather to give them energy that is fundamentally more expensive, but to lower that window as much as possible.
So let's not say that we are giving the poor the "cheapest energy possible", because, that's not what we're doing.
what the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
"She wanted to give the @2 billion people around the world who dont have electricity the gift of light and cheap energy."
What does "@2 billion" mean? "At two billion?" Maybe "~2 billion?"
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's perfectly fine, actually, just as long as you don't claim to be doing everything for the sake of the poorest people on the planet. That's a contradiction.
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three utilities for a patent.
Using it to set up a monopolistic business and pricing the device higher than Cost+ReasonableProfit.
Selling it to an existing business so they can do so.
Patent trolling, supporting a leisurely lifestyle by placing a perpetual tax on those who would like to bring these devices to the citizenry of the world without continuing to productively participate in society.
Four: Keeping a big, greedy, monopolistic company (or patent troll) from patenting the design first, thus forcing everyone to pay.
Not every patent-holder is evil, and not every company that sells something is trying to rob you. Only most of them.
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
She wants to help the poor people of the world.
So, she found a process that uses cheap, easily accessible parts that would allow people in poor countries to help themselves.
And she patented it. So she can commercialize it.
Fuck off and die, bitch.
Just because you patent it that doesn't mean you have to charge an arm and a leg for it. Some people simply get a patent so others can't steal their idea. Say some gready corp who says hey this is cheap and effective and we can make a fortune even if we up the cost 5000% or more.
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
She's a PhD student -- she probably didn't have any choice in the matter, as the patent is probably held by the university.
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AU postgrads own their IP (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:"Crafty chick" (Score:5, Funny)
The term 'feminazis' is sexist and demeaning. We demand to be called pro-female Fascists. From hereon in anyone who utters that degrading neologism will be executed without trial by way of snoo-snoo.
Pig.
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Re:"Crafty chick" (Score:5, Informative)
Get back in the kitchen and cook me a solar cell!
It would be nice if the article told us how it works ... if she has a way to get past transparent conductive oxide layers I would certainly be interested in hearing about it. Zinc Oxide deposition onto glass substrates is used for the black currant solar cell.
I like how that technique is being heralded by a company named Mansolar [mansolar.com]....
Well - reading the fucking article again, I did notice this ...
"While it could take five years to commercialise the patented technology"
Am I being an asshole for pointing out the irony of wanting to commercialize DIY solar cell technology?
""I love working with passionate people who want to help address climate change and poverty by thinking and experimenting outside the square," she said."
That reminds me of an episode of Pinky and the Brain. Something about Brain wanting to take over the world for the good of all man kind, and chanting kumbaya with a bunch of hippies... :-)
And are they talking about an electric pizza oven or a brick oven pizza oven? I imagine one would be depositing carbon all over the place ... which could help in some cases. The black currant technique requires a layer of graphite to be applied for the anode I think...
Your resident /. manarchist,
afxgrin
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Re:"Crafty chick" (Score:5, Informative)
Here are more details:
A typical photovoltaic cell is made of a thin boron doped P-type (P for positive) silicon wafer with positively charged 'holes' (missing electrons). [...] Metal contact is made to both the P and N-type silicon allowing electrons to flow out of the N-type silicon [...]
Unfortunately photovoltaic cells are expensive to produce, as you traditionally need access to elaborate, clean' manufacturing plants [...]
Nicole has spent the last two years researching an alternative manufacturing process [...] Using Inkjet printing, aluminium spray and a pizza oven, Nicole has created metal contacts to both the negative and positive sections of a solar cell
"[...] we spray on something like nail polish and then inkjet print a kind of nail polish remover which lets us etch certain parts of the wafer. This creates a metallisation pattern so we can deposit aluminium on the back surface of the solar cell and create our metal contacts to both the P and N-type silicon simultaneously using a very cheap, low temperature pizza oven!
from http://www.amonline.net.au/eureka/index.cfm?objectid=A4D69CF1-9890-B67D-2409EF3BFCD8F038&DISPLAYENTRY=true [amonline.net.au]
I assumed that producing ultra-pure silicon wafers was the most expensive part about making solar cells, but I guess this would also help.
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Re:"Crafty chick" (Score:5, Informative)
"[...] we spray on something like nail polish and then inkjet print a kind of nail polish remover which lets us etch certain parts of the wafer. This creates a metallisation pattern so we can deposit aluminium on the back surface of the solar cell and create our metal contacts to both the P and N-type silicon simultaneously using a very cheap, low temperature pizza oven!
AHHAHAhhahahahaaaaaa.
I know what's going on. The above is "dumbed down" for the reporter, who has reported it "faithfully" - and now everyone is assuming she *actually* used nail polish, an inkjet printer, and a pizza oven. She didn't use ANY of those. She used a full blow IC Fab - the above sounds exactly like a regular old wafer etch step, just with metal instead of silicon and an "inket LIKE" application of the photoresist before the acid etch!
Ahhahhahahahaa. (wipes tear) You Loosers.
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Re:crafty chick? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:crafty chick? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think Outback Steakhouse would lie to me about this.
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Re:Sexist and trivializing characterization. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, dude, I know a lot of really smart chicks. Some chicks I know are even nerds. So don't get your panties in a twist, babe.
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Re:Sexist and trivializing characterization. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Sexist and trivializing characterization. (Score:5, Insightful)
Join the fucking twenty-first century.
This might sound like nitpicking, but people seeing women as equal to men isn't a "twenty-first century" concept. In fact, 2400 years ago Plato was already defending that, for example, if a woman is capable of governing a state, she should be allowed to, not blocked because of her sex.
We should stop being chronocentrists, which is as much a discriminatory state of mind as ethnocentrism. A given year, or a collection of years, has no attached value. Something happening "in the 21st century" isn't better just because it's happening "after" whatever came before. Ideas, such as that women and men must have equal rights, must be judged in themselves, not because of when they appeared, or when they became mainstream, or when they stopped being mainstream, or whatever.
So, while I agree with your sentiment, I must disagree with the way you express it. Calling for someone to change his behavior because of the "age" or "era" in which he lives is to incur in the "appeal to authority" fallacy. In fact, the only intellectually correct approach is to defend an idea by its own merits, not dwelling into its "ageity" at all.
Do more, or less, than this, and what you'll be doing won't be a rational defense of an idea, but merely a rhetorical one. In other words, politics, not reason.
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Re:Ftw. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose calling males 'guys' or 'dudes' is also sexist, then?
Seriously, some people are way over-fucking-sensitive. Probably not yourself.. but the people that decide on what's "politically correct" should be sent to mental asylums, or perhaps become antagonists in a Jane Austen theatre production.
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Re:girly solar (Score:5, Funny)
There is no reason why we all can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, today.
Actually, there is. Inspired by your post, I called up Backyard Atomics Inc. and asked them if I could get a nuclear plant in my backyard today. They said no, it takes 3-5 days for shipping. So already I was disappointed. Then I decided to see if you were at least partly right, and asked if they would get plants to everyone in 3-5 days. They said no, that would require their full production capacity through at least next February.
So I appreciate the spirit of your post, but please get your facts right next time. It's either "There is no reason why some of us can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, next week" or "There is no reason we all can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, next year."
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