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My understanding is that they are a bit cheaper, but they're also a lot more toxic than traditional solar panel materials. Perhaps they'll find a niche, or perh

My understanding is that they are a bit cheaper, but they're also a lot more toxic than traditional solar panel materials. Perhaps they'll find a niche, or perhaps someone will find a game-changing development, but overall they don't seem particularly promising to me.

ncmncm 4y ago
I think the amount of toxin would be much smaller than found in, e.g., CdTe panels (8 g/m^2 of Cd), because they may be very thin. But maybe less well contained? (I read claims that a house fire under CdTe panels will not make your neighborhood into a superfund site, but don't know how to evaluate them. Is the Te on one side and glass on the other expected keep the Cd in, even at 1200 C?) There are good reasons to want perovskite cells to be usable. Efficiency can go above 30%, and they are very light and flexible. So, it is great that so many people are working on the problem. I never read anything about them without the person mentioning attempts to improve lifetime. They might not be so useful in solar farms, but e.g. on high-altitude "dwell" drones that don't land, their advantages would be decisive. They are already favored for those reasons on satellites, where they are free of weather. A dwell drone's useful life might not be more than a couple of years anyway, if only because it gets obsolete, and anyway the motor and batteries wear out. Anyway the material does seem to have desirable properties besides just being cheap to make. So, thank you Lea and Sarah, and best of luck!
- ahazred8ta 4y ago
  "The typical temperatures of residential fires in the US are not high enough to vaporize CdTe" (Fthenakis and Zweibel, 2003)
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Question is whether temps are high enough to make the glass or the tellurium fragment or melt, exposing the cadmium.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  Perhaps, but aren't CdTe panels quite uncommon (google says ~5% of panels)? Most panels are crystalline silicon which is pretty safe.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Of course. The CdTe panels are common only in the US. But, it is not obvious to people which one a panel is. Or to a fireman or bulldozer operator.

ncmncm 4y ago

I think the amount of toxin would be much smaller than found in, e.g., CdTe panels (8 g/m^2 of Cd), because they may be very thin. But maybe less well contained? (I read claims that a house fire under CdTe panels will not make your neighborhood into a superfund site, but don't know how to evaluate them. Is the Te on one side and glass on the other expected keep the Cd in, even at 1200 C?) There are good reasons to want perovskite cells to be usable. Efficiency can go above 30%, and they are very light and flexible. So, it is great that so many people are working on the problem. I never read anything about them without the person mentioning attempts to improve lifetime. They might not be so useful in solar farms, but e.g. on high-altitude "dwell" drones that don't land, their advantages would be decisive. They are already favored for those reasons on satellites, where they are free of weather. A dwell drone's useful life might not be more than a couple of years anyway, if only because it gets obsolete, and anyway the motor and batteries wear out. Anyway the material does seem to have desirable properties besides just being cheap to make. So, thank you Lea and Sarah, and best of luck!

ahazred8ta 4y ago
"The typical temperatures of residential fires in the US are not high enough to vaporize CdTe" (Fthenakis and Zweibel, 2003)
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Question is whether temps are high enough to make the glass or the tellurium fragment or melt, exposing the cadmium.
nicoburns 4y ago
Perhaps, but aren't CdTe panels quite uncommon (google says ~5% of panels)? Most panels are crystalline silicon which is pretty safe.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Of course. The CdTe panels are common only in the US. But, it is not obvious to people which one a panel is. Or to a fireman or bulldozer operator.