Solar cells using tiny spheres of silicon

Focusing Light on Silicon Beads
Placing tiny spheres of silicon in reflective trays could be the key to cheap, efficient solar cells.

Spherical solar cells were originally proposed by Texas Instruments about 30 years ago, says Branz. But while they had the potential to reduce the amount of silicon used, they brought with them a host of new problems. Their curved surfaces, for example, can cause more light to be reflected, which reduces their efficiency. What's more, only half of the sphere ends up actually being exposed to light. Significant gaps also tend to form between the spheres when arranged in arrays, which can further reduce the efficiency of the solar cell.

Process for producing crystalline silicon spheres - Patent 4637855
Method of isolating shorted silicon spheres - US Patent 5192400
Method of making doped silicon spheres - US Patent 5278097

Solar Energy: Popcorn-ball Design Doubles Efficiency Of Dye-sensitized Solar Cells
porous spheres are able to manipulate light and more than double the efficiency of converting solar energy to electricity.

Spheral Solar Will Start Production In 2004  Where did these guys go?

Officials of Sphere Renewable Energy Corp. based in California announced plans to develop a wholly-owned subsidiary, Buckeye Silicon (BeSi) in Toledo at UT June 23.

Video Sphere Renewable Energy Corp forms Buckeye Silicon joins Toledo solar business
Video Buckeye Silicon
Very odd that I can not find a web site for either company. 
Contacts listed: Jim Calhoun, 419-893-9600 & Mark Erickson, 714-497-9499

Companies doing this.

Clean Venture 21 (CV21),  Kyoto, Japan.


Sphere Renewable Energy Corp. (SREC),  California
Buckeye Silicon (BeSi),  Toledo, OH


Spheral Solar Power (now gone?) - A division of ATS Automation Tooling Systems ,  Ontario, Canada

Why solar doesn't need to be cheap or high tech

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/donutsolar/

But that is just a way to bootstrap the solar-cell industry.
Now that we are understanding the technology, it's costs are falling.
We are finding simpler cheaper chemistry and better production techniques.

It is viable. Or almost at this point.
It's possible to build solar cells on cheap plastics using printing techniques and chemicals that are no more expensive then paint.

Titanium Dioxide TiO2 and organic dyes are about as cheap as it gets.
There are also conductive plastics now.

LCD's and Solar panels need clear conductors, the older silicon ones didn't use clear conductors, and as a result were not very efficient.

But the flexible printable kind need it,

Below is a block of notes I have on transparent conductors.
ITO is expensive because it requires vacuum deposition.

Zinc Oxide is about as cheap as it get's
Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide are both sold as powders in bulk for food and paints.
Although not particularly efficient, they very low cost,


Clear conductors
1.) Indium tin oxide (ITO)
2.) pedot - conductive plastic
3.) aluminum doped zinc oxide
4.) stannous chloride - re: Jeri Ellsworth  http://www.teralab.co.uk/Experiments/Conductive_Glass/Conductive_Glass_Page1.htm

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Liquid-Crystal-Display-LCD.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display
http://plc.cwru.edu/tutorial/enhanced/files/textbook.htm




On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 10:34 PM, av wrote:
and another key think about solar.
solar-cell tech was production-ized for the military
solar-cell production  was never meant for civilian use

Military need solar cells to power spy satellites. that's the key.
so world-over - Military built plants without any tho to cost of manufacturing or of 'commercial viability'
they didn't need commercial viability,  they didn't need to be cheap,  any cost is fine. because there are very few alternatives to electricity in space.

but then arose a problem  - what to do with the plants excess cell output  ?
the solution in the 1960's was to sell the surplus to the civilians
but no civilian could buy the damn things at cost of mfg. it was too high.
so the govts started the Subsidies on Solar cells,  in 1960s.

That's the origin of this whole mess.
people wrongly started to think that solar is viable.,   its not. 
as soon as the govt-subsidies stop, it stops being viable,.
people don't get it.

av

Dow to sell new solar rooftop shingle

FROM: reuters.com

Dow Chemical Co said it would begin selling a new rooftop shingle next year that converts sunlight into electricity. The solar shingles can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingles, Dow said, and will be introduced in 2010 before a wider roll-out in 2011.

"We're looking at this one product that could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2015 and $10 billion by 2020", Jane Palmieri, managing director - Dow Solar Solutions

The shingle will use thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a photovoltaic material that typically is more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells.

Dow is using CIGS cells that operate at higher than 10 percent efficiency, below the efficiencies for the top polysilicon cells, but would cost 10 to 15 percent less on a per watt basis.

Dow Solar Solutions expects an enthusiastic response from roofing contractors for the new shingles, since they require no specialized skills or knowledge of solar systems to install.

The new product is the latest advance in "Building Integrated Photovoltaic" (BIPV) systems, in which power-generating systems are built directly into the traditional materials used to construct buildings.  BIPV systems are currently limited mostly to roofing tiles, which operate at lower efficiencies than solar panels and have so far been too expensive to gain wide acceptance.

Dow's shingle will be about 30 to 40 percent cheaper than current BIPV systems.The shingles can be installed in about 10 hours, compared with 22 to 30 hours for traditional solar panels, reducing the installation costs that make up more than 50 percent of total system prices.

The product will be rolled out in North America through partnerships with home builders such as Lennar Corp and Pulte Homes Inc before marketing is expanded, Palmieri said.

Dow received $20 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop its BIPV products. Dow also produces fluids used in concentrated solar systems, in which sunlight is used to generate heat that produces steam to power a turbine. In addition, it supplies materials used to help manufacture photovoltaic panels and increase their efficiency.

New 'green' geopolymer concrete

NOTE:  Fly ash is a byproduct of coal-fired power plants. So I am not too sure how Green this technology really is. This could just be another Red Herring like clean coal. It could be cheaper then traditional concrete, I will be investigating this further.

From: Gizmag.com
New 'green' geopolymer concrete delivers win-win for industry and the planet

Concrete is the most prevalent building material on the planet, and though the world would be pretty flat without it (not many tall buildings and structures), it does come at a price – around 5-8 percent of all human-generated atmospheric CO2 comes from the concrete industry. A culprit is Portland cement, the binding agent in concrete. It’s the most widely produced man-made material on earth. Production of Portland cement is currently exceeding 2.6 billion tons per year worldwide and growing at 5 percent annually. To halt these alarming pollution figures, innovative research on geopolymer concrete, along with ways of using a waste byproduct from coal-fired powerplants, is being conducted by Dr Erez Allouche, assistant professor of civil engineering at Louisiana Tech University and associate director of the Trenchless Technology Center.

A greener alternative, inorganic polymer concrete (geopolymer) fits into an emerging class of cementitious materials that utilize ‘fly ash’, one of the most abundant industrial by-products on earth, as a substitute for Portland cement.

Geopolymer concrete has a number of benefits. The first is it has the potential to substantially curb CO2 emissions. It can also produce a more durable infrastructure capable of lasting hundreds of years, instead of tens. And by utilizing the fly ash, it can conserve hundreds of thousands of acres currently used for disposal of coal combustion products, and protect our water ways from fly ash ‘contamination’, too.

In comparison to ordinary Portland cement (OPC), geopolymer concrete (GPC) has better resistance to corrosion and fire (up to 2400°F), high compressive and tensile strengths, a rapid strength gain, and lower shrinkage.

Researchers believe the geopolymer concrete's greatest appeal could like in its life cycle greenhouse gas reduction potential; as much as 90 percent when compared with OPC.

This technology, along with other important research being conducted to meet future energy needs, will be highlighted next month at Louisiana Tech Energy Systems Conference at the Technology Transfer Center in Shreveport.


From: geopolymer.org
Fly Ash based Geopolymer Concrete : 2 new reports from Curtin 

The geopolymer group at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia (Prof. V. Rangan) has released 2 new reports on Fly Ash Based Geopolymer Concrete. They may be downloaded from our Library.
The first report: Report GC 2 is dealing with the long term properties. It has been included in the Technical Paper #17 in the Library, in addition to the previous report GC 1.
The second : Report GC 3 describes the properties of Beams and Columns. It is named Technical Paper #18 in the Library.

AlgaeGeek

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Arduino Strobe Algae Bioreactor
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