Jun 28 2010
The operational life of a plastic solar cell has been increased from very few hours to eight months by a group of researchers from the National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) and the University of Alberta.
The economical plastic solar cell technology, during its development, had an obstacle because of the chemical leeching problem occurred in the prototype’s body. The chemical coating given on an electrode was not stable, hence, moved away through the cell circuitry.
To resolve this issue, a long-lasting polymer coating was developed for the electrode by the team led by David Rider, a chemistry researcher from NINT. Electrodes are important in the solar technology for deriving electricity from the solar cell.
The plastic solar cell could operate at high capacity only for ten hours before the polymer coating. But, when the research team submitted their paper to the Advanced Functional Materials journal, the plastic solar cell had functioned at high capacity for 500 hours and continued working for the next seven months. The solar cell stopped operating only after it was damaged during transportation between labs.
Source: http://www.ualberta.ca/