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Paper-thin solar cell can turn any surface into a power source

• westurner 4y ago
  > These durable, flexible solar cells, which are much thinner than a human hair, are glued to a strong, lightweight fabric, making them easy to install on a fixed surface. They can provide energy on the go as a wearable power fabric or be transported and rapidly deployed in remote locations for assistance in emergencies. They are one-hundredth the weight of conventional solar panels, generate 18 times more power-per-kilogram, and are made from semiconducting inks using printing processes that can be scaled in the future to large-area manufacturing. Because they are so thin and lightweight, these solar cells can be laminated onto many different surfaces. For instance, they could be integrated onto the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea, adhered onto tents and tarps that are deployed in disaster recovery operations, or applied onto the wings of drones to extend their flying range. This lightweight solar technology can be easily integrated into built environments with minimal installation needs. > [...] They found an ideal material — a composite fabric that weighs only 13 grams per square meter, commercially known as Dyneema They also make ultralight backpacking backpacks out of Dyneema, but without the UV-curable glue. > […] “A typical rooftop solar installation in Massachusetts is about 8,000 watts. To generate that same amount of power, our fabric photovoltaics would only add about 20 kilograms (44 pounds) to the roof of a house,” he says Paper: “Printed Organic Photovoltaic Modules on Transferable Ultra-thin Substrates as Additive Power Sources” (2022) https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202200940 https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202200940