Capsaicin Spices Up Perovskite-Based Solar Cells To Record Efficiencies (cell.com) 45
"Researchers claim achievement of new record photovoltaic conversion efficiencies for perovskite-based solar cells by spicing them up with a little capsaicin," writes Slashdot reader ffkom, adding: "Of course everyone who loves to eat chilis already knew capsaicin energizes you to record levels." The researchers have published their findings in the journal Joule. From the report: Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) suffer from significant nonradiative recombination, limiting their power conversion efficiencies. Here, for the first time, we directly observe a complete transformation of perovskite MAPbI 3 surface region energetics from p- to n-type during defect passivation caused by natural additive capsaicin, attributed to the spontaneous formation of a p-n homojunction in perovskite active layer. We demonstrate that the p-n homojunction locates at 100 nm below perovskite surface. The energetics transformation and defect passivation promote charge transport in bulk perovskite layer and at perovskite/PCBM interface, suppressing both defect-assisted recombination and interface carrier recombination. As a result, an efficiency of 21.88% and a fill factor of 83.81% with excellent device stability are achieved, both values are the highest records for polycrystalline MAPbI 3 based p-i-n PSCs reported to date. The proposed new concept of synergetic defect passivation and energetic modification via additive provides a huge potential for further improvement of PSC performance.
Re:Careful with that name ... (Score:4, Interesting)
With the current climate,
Perovskite
Is bound to get some people excited for the wrong reasons. Use it too many times and slashdot's conservative base might up and walk away, believing that this site has been taken over by communist sympathizers.
Odd you should say that. At least according to Russia, some of the con artist supporters are looking into how to become citizens of Russia [uawire.org]. You know, because they fear prosecution for their attempted coup.
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A bunch of the last Republican president's advisors decided to become citizens of Israel.
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It's a promising renewable energy technology, so it's inherently communist :-P
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Promising? Well... do you like lead? Like surprisingly large amounts of lead? Like surprisingly large amounts of lead in a form that readily becomes water soluble if the cell is damaged? And like all that in a product with a short lifespan?
If so... promising!
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Short lifespan ? You have to be kidding. My parent's solar panels deliver (after 14 years) still about the same as in the beginning. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sc... [dailymail.co.uk]
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Solar cell lifespans aren't that short, and these are all easily manageable problems compared to the base problem of fossil fuels, dumping a greenhouse gas into our atmosphere which then requires costly new technologies to be deployed to suck it back out. I'd bet that a dump for all the world's solar panels wouldn't be as bad as the Fort McMurray tar sands facility.
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With the current climate,
Perovskite
Is bound to get some people excited for the wrong reasons. Use it too many times and slashdot's conservative base might up and walk away, believing that this site has been taken over by communist sympathizers.
to a Russian speaker, the article looks even funnier than you'd think, because MAPbl appears to be like a teenager way to transcribe Cyrillics using Latin alphabet. bl is a letter in Russian that corresponds to a sound that does not exist in English phonetics (like ee but in the back of your throat), normally romanized as y, but bl is almost exactly how upper case of that letter looks in Cyrillic. in addition, at the end of nouns bl denotes plural number, so MAPbl does look like a plural form of a word MAP
Next thing to try? (Score:2)
They need to investigate the properties of Blue Cheese. I suggest Rooties first, then maybe Ken's or Maries... /s
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CapNCook? (Score:2)
Still waiting for my organic cells on a roll. =/ (Score:2)
It's been over 20 years since them scientists made me the promise that I could buy those on a roll at WallMart for a few bucks.
Perovskite seem to be the new organic cells with a lot of promises made without any real production.
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Petrovskite solar cells were only invented in 2009, you're not posting from a time machine are you? :-)
The first several years of development the efficiency of the things sucked really badly. It's only been the last three or four years that they're up to a level where it would be worthwhile to actually produce them, and the last I heard there were half a dozen companies building production lines (mostly in Europe).
Most fun reading since early chip days (Score:2)
I remember reading about new research and products in the 80s, when advances went by leaps and bounds,and it was obvious they would change the world. (WIRED later got a whole magazine out of that feeling we had.)
I'm getting the same emotions again, as I see the frequent articles on battery, solar, and wind research. Machinery - and the mega construction projects to install them - like the Haliade-X wind turbines, are sexy new engineering. The giant PV/Solar/Hydrogen project at the north end of Australi
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"I'm getting the same emotions again, as I see the frequent articles on battery, solar, and wind research"
That's what happens when you give an underdeveloped area infinity money.
I remember the first round of this in 2008, when everyone on the street was pulling from the oil companies they could no longer afford and giving it to long-shots in the renewables side. Over the next five years, PV dropped in price from ~$3/W to about 70 cents. Now its 20.
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In this case it's about realistic prospects to move up from about 22% efficiency in mainstream solar panels to 29%, that's a factor of 1.3, huge. Nearly 300 watts per meter under ideal conditions (pointing straight up at noon on a cloudless day at the equator).
How did they find out? (Score:5, Funny)
Did someone spill hot sauce in the lab?
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Did someone spill hot sauce in the lab?
Haha very funny. It’s a surprise it wasn’t discovered earlier, solar cells taste pretty bland.
How much does it cost? Not so green (Score:1)
Having seen some of the physics and economics of solar power while attending university, and in talking to people in the energy industry since, the big problem with solar power is cost. A large part of this cost is in the installation, not the PV cells themselves.
More expensive and more efficient PV cells make sense on a residential rooftop, that's because there is a lot of labor involved in that. The cost of residential rooftop solar is triple that, sometime close to ten times that, of utility scale sola
Re:How much does it cost? Not so green (Score:4, Informative)
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Depends on a ton of things. Grass needs sun and most utility scale installations are just on vast tracts of land owned by the utility and left to prett
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Must be some weird kind of grass then.
In Germany - do to EU rules of reducing agricultural land - at some places they indeed build solar plants on top of grass land. Usually either close to a town or a railroad. Anyway: the grass is just fine.
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> Having seen some of the physics and economics of solar power while attending university
"Hi, I've never worked in the field and haven't kept up, but let me waste all your time..."
> Residential rooftop solar makes nuclear fission power look real cheap
On the utility side of the meter, sure. On the consumer side, it's pretty competitive. And that's where residential PV is installed.
The current backbone price for power in Ontario is about 1.2 cents/kWh as I write this:
https://www.ieso.ca/power-data
So the
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And the costs continue to come down. Panels themselves are dropping about 5-10% a year. Higher voltage means higher efficiency and cheaper wire. Lifepo battery prices are dropping like a rock, soon they will be competitive with AGM if not already. I bet if you redid your garage installation today it would come in around 8 cents/kwh including billing your labour at market rates.
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So basically what you're saying about roof top solar is, it will be compelling if installation costs come down. All the other costs have already dropped into the compelling zone with no sign of stopping.
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So basically what you're saying about roof top solar is, it will be compelling if installation costs come down. All the other costs have already dropped into the compelling zone with no sign of stopping.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying solar power is shit for on grid power. I'm saying that outside of a few use cases like communication satellites and pocket calculators solar power is also shit.
I'm saying that solar power will become more expensive relative to competing energy sources in the future. I'm saying solar power is shit now and will only get shittier in the future.
I'm saying wind and nuclear fission take less labor and materials than solar for the same energy and power output. I'm saying
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Yah yah, your rant will collides with the objective fact that 3% of global power is now solar and it's accelerating. In Germany it's 8.6%. I personally will be selling my excess to the grid pretty soon and the economics of it work fine for me. Even I lots a bit of money on the proposition, much like early hybrid auto adopters, it's worth it to me because I'm doing something for the planet. But I won't lose money, I'll do fine, and I get off on the geek factor. Plus never again will there be a power outage h
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Yah yah, your rant will collides with the objective fact that 3% of global power is now solar and it's accelerating.
That's what happens when it becomes politically popular to dump billions of dollars of other people's money into the solar power industry. When the subsidies dry up then so will the growth.
In Germany it's 8.6%.
Germany also has some of the highest electricity rates in the world. I believe this is related to their subsidies for solar power.
I personally will be selling my excess to the grid pretty soon and the economics of it work fine for me.
I expect a lot of people to find solar power economical because of the subsidies. It's trivial to make money in an industry where the government mandates that everyone involved make a profit
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Good post, food for thought. Some of your black and white assessment is less than convincing. Consider Germany for example, the situation is largely the imperative of escaping Russian leverage over natural gas. Cheap at twice the price. They also put in a lot of wind power so they are covering their bases. California. Pretty much the ideal place for solar: peak demand is largely driven by air conditioning, mostly during daylight hours. Localized solar (and wind) cuts down transmission costs, real estate and
right on time (Score:1)
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The lead issue is still an issue.
The proposed new concept of synergetic defect pass (Score:2)
Great summary, totally accessible to the layman.
FFS, "editors"
Re:The proposed new concept of synergetic defect p (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, more accessible version then:
Around 2009 a new type of solar panels was developed, based on different set of chemicals than currently dominant silicon-based solar panels. Its power efficiency sucked, but it was much cheaper to manufacture - it promised less watt per m^2 but more watt per $ of investment if you have the surface to put them, providing efficiency is bumped to levels approaching the silicone cells.
Development continued, and recently the petrovskite solar panels weren't far behind silicone - with a good factory they could totally outclass silicone at watt per $. The recent development - adding capsaicin (the chemical that makes chillies taste spicy) further bumps efficiency of these panels, so there's hope we'll see them enter mass market soon, because you can get more power with smaller investment, providing you have space to place them.
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> silicone cells
*sigh*
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15 years ago, PSCs were only 3% efficient. This is a completely different technology than crystalline Si cells.
Frankâ(TM)s RedHot (Score:2)
I put that sh* on everything!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com] ...Including Solar Cells...
Chili Perovskite (Score:2)
Walter: The shit you cook is shit. I saw your setup. Ridiculous. You and I will not make garbage. We will produce a chemically pure and stable product that performs as advertised. No adulterants. No baby formula. No Chili powder.
Jesse: No, no, chili P is my signature!