New Device Harvests 90 Percent of Available Sunlight

A scientist in the United States announces the development of a new device, which is capable of harvesting up to 90 percent of the energy contained in available sunlight. The innovation could make its way to the market in as little as 5 years, its creator explains.

This is a remarkable achievement, analysts say, given that the most effective photovoltaic cells today can only achieve a 20 percent conversion efficiency. The new device promises a 450 percent increase in efficiency, they explain.

University of Missouri Chemical Engineering Department associate professor and engineer Patrick Pinhero led this investigation. He was also the one who proposed and developed the new flexible solar sheet that now exceeds photovoltaic technology several times over.

One of the reasons why traditional photovoltaic (PV) methods of solar collection are so inefficient at producing electricity is the fact that they are only focused on exploiting specific regions of the available light's electromagnetic spectrum.

This limitation causes them to ignore other parts of the spectrum, which may also be efficiently harvested and used. The MU-developed instrument can focus on nearly the entire range of radiation included in sunlight, Science Blog reports.

The team explains that the solar sheet it developed contains nantenna, structures that can be used to harvest the heat emitted by industrial processes. This thermal radiation is efficiently converted into electricity, and then reused.

What the MU team wants to do is extend this concept to solar cells, therefore creating a device capable of harvesting both light and heat from the Sun. This will be made possible by the use of special high-speed electrical circuitry, the researchers say.

“Our overall goal is to collect and utilize as much solar energy as is theoretically possible and bring it to the commercial market in an inexpensive package that is accessible to everyone,” Pinhero explains.

“If successful, this product will put us orders of magnitudes ahead of the current solar energy technologies we have available to us today,” the MU team leader goes on to say.

Researchers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL) are also a part of the new study, as is University of Colorado in boulder electrical engineering professor Garrett Moddel.