Tag Archives: solar cell windows

Windows as solar cells using carbon nanotubes from Australia

It’s not a brand new idea (windows as solar cells) as the folks at Flinders University (Adelaide, South Australia) might have you believe but it’s the first time I can recall coming across a reference to carbon nanotubes and ‘solar cell’ windows. From the March 20, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

As part of his just-completed PhD, Dr Mark Bissett [photograph with Nanowerk news item] from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences [Flinders University] has developed a revolutionary solar cell using carbon nanotubes.

A promising alternative to traditional silicon-based solar cells, carbon nanotubes are cheaper to make and more efficient to use than their energy-sapping, silicon counterparts.

“The overall efficiency of silicon solar cells are about 10 per cent and even when they’re operating at optimal efficiency it could take eight to 15 years to make back the energy that it took to produce them in the first place because they’re produced using fossil fuels,” he said.

Dr Bissett said the new, low-cost carbon nanotubes are transparent, meaning they can be “sprayed” onto windows without blocking light, and they are also flexible so they can be weaved into a range of materials including fabric – a concept that is already being explored by advertising companies.

While the amount of power generated by solar windows would not be enough to completely offset the energy consumption of a standard office building, Dr Bissett said they still had many financial and environmental advantages.

“In a new building, or one where the windows are being replaced anyway, adding transparent solar cells to the glass would be a relatively small cost since the cost of the glass, frames and installation would be the same with or without the solar component,” Dr Bissett said.

The researchers are suggesting that this technology could be in the marketplace in 10 years.