Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Italian company Eni have successfully printed solar cells onto a piece of paper, an achievement could go a long way toward advancing solar technology and its everyday applications.
The thinner the solar cell, the easier it is to install and the more versatile its uses. The MIT researchers used carbon-based dyes and cells that are 1.5% to 2% efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. The Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center is pursuing many methods of creating thin-film solar cells that can be sprayed onto any material during the manufacturing process, from plastic to paper to metal foils.
The obvious application from an automotive perspective is the paint on your car. If the entire body were essentially one large solar cell, MIT is also working on quantum dots only a few nanometers thick (a human hair ranges from 50,000 to 100,000 nanometers thick) that can enhance efficiency, making the paint a significant power source.
Don’t start celebrating yet, though. As with many of these great-in-theory ideas, the basic commercialization — let alone widespread adoption — of any of this technology is still a decade or two away, according to one MIT researcher.
