I’m not sure if this already got news globally or not but I really wanted to share this more in hopes of it getting more attention
So I’ve always been a fan of solar panels since they provide way more benefits now more than ever since aside from giving yourself the freedom from electric companies who still heavily rely on petroleum or even nuclear energy to use as an energy source, this alternative would be great for having a decentralized form of energy as well as a way to reduce your bills. Now imagine if these solar panels were used as windows, or as screens on all your gadgets. Imagine basically free electricity as Nikola Tesla wanted but in a greener approach? This would definitely eliminate the guilt of using electric vehicles, of depleting the petroleum reserves and if ever, for the possible power shortages in the future
Here, it’s a transparent solar panel which was developed by a research team in the college of engineering at Michigan State University. Its transparency is its major selling point seeing as it can be multi functional and can be used on almost any glass surface that people can imagine, and it could be the key to producing self-charging gadgets so that we would never need to worry about battery life when we’re out.
But how does this work?
First, I’d like to talk about why this has never been done before now. You see, traditional solar panels are usually darkly tinted or are black glass because black absorbs all wavelengths light has. Black is the ideal absorber of energy (explains why it’s hotter when you wear black clothes) so for a solar panel to be clear, that means no energy will be absorbed because light will just pass through.
To answer to that problem, the research team made use of an organic salt called transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC). This material deviates from the traditional solar panel but then it works! It mostly absorbs wavelengths from the ultraviolet and infrared light. That energy absorbed is then converted to the infrared region. Energy from the infrared region is what comes off as heat but then its efficiency to be used in every household is just not there yet. Hopefully in the future, they can improve the efficiency of this device and make it a step towards truly green energy without the need to change how our building structures are usually designed
this is the official paper for those interested
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adom.201400103
I just simplified this so as to make it easier to understand. Also this is because of my previous elongated discussion with @Cryptonoob and @bheng620
I need, I need