Scientists Discover Solar Energy Material That Captures All Rainbow’s Colors

Scientists have discovered a hybrid plastic-metal material that generates electrons in a way that can easily be captured on a spectrum and at the same time efficiently absorb all the energy from a ray of sunlight.

The material is a computerized lab creation that combines electrically conductive plastic with several metals including molybdenum and titanium. It overcomes the two major roadblocks involved in capturing solar energy: taking in all energy from sunlight and producing easily-capturable electons. Thus, the new material may have the potential to revolutionize how manufactured solar cells obtain energy from the sun.

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The researchers from Ohio State University and National Taiwan University first explored different molecular configurations on a computer before putting it through a synthesization process to design the hybrid material.

This is the first material that can simultaneously absorb the entire spectrum of colors that can be seen with the naked eye—all the colors of the rainbow—and turn them into energy.

“There are other such hybrids out there, but the advantage of our material is that we can cover the entire range of the solar spectrum,” explained Malcolm Chisholm, the OSU chemistry professor who led the research team.

What our eyes interpret as color are really different energy levels, or frequencies of light. The new material favorably compares with currently available solar cell materials that can only capture a small range of light-wave frequencies, thereby only benefiting from a small fraction of the energy contained in sunlight.

The material is still years away from commercial development. But the research, cited by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides a proof of the concept that hybrid solar cell materials can offer unusual and promising properties.

>>Read more on this discovery at CleanTechnica.

Source: Ohio State University

Image credit: ATTL at Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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