UFPR researchers have developed an unprecedented method to produce organic solar panels. These new solar cells promise MANY advantages triple the efficiency of new solar panels.
Outside the Polytechnic Center of the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), in the south zone of Curitiba, green plaques color the gray appearance of the three floors of the building. What most people don't know is that These are organic solar panels that never stop converting sunlight into electrical energy.
The use of organic solar cells, which have carbon in their composition and are made of very thin and flexible plastics, to produce electricity has been known for 35 years. However, the UFPR University Nanostructured Devices Group (Dine) discovered a new method of producing so-called organic solar panels, with materials and processes that can triple the efficiency in converting light into renewable energy, compared to other materials.
UFPR develops new method for producing organic solar panels
It is worth noting that the discovery of organic solar cells resulted in the 100th patent granted to the university by the National Institute of Industrial Property (Inpi), the federal agency responsible for granting intellectual property rights to the industry.
In the new technique discovered by the researchers, the film, made up of four layers printed in a few minutes by a special printer, undergoes a reaction that makes it more stable and durable.
A discovery of new organic solar panels is in the laboratory phase. In the windows of the UFPR Polytechnic Center, for example, there are signs made before this registration and printed by the only company that sells organic photovoltaic panels in the Americas, Sunew from Minas Gerais.
Organic solar panels offer greater simplicity, malleability and adaptability
The registration of the patent represents, in the assessment of Dine researchers, an advance in relation to the two main disadvantages of using organic solar cells currently known: durability and efficiency, which are still inferior to those of inorganic cells, which do not have carbon in their composition. , such as water and mineral salts.
Only the discovery of new drivers can break these barriers. Currently, the best-known way of converting solar energy into electrical energy begins with the extraction of silicon, which is an inorganic cell found in rocks, clay, sand and soil.
For the extraction to take place, an industrial reduction of the quartz usually takes place, placed in foundry furnaces connected to up to 2 thousand ºC. This production process, unlike printers that print organic solar cells, generates more polluting CO2 emissions.
Already The use of organic solar cells has proven to be simpler, malleable and adaptable, evaluates the doctor in physics from UFPR and member of Dine, Maiara de Jesus Bassi.
Advantages of organic solar cells over traditional ones
Unlike common panels, which are heavier and more rigid, organic solar panels can be placed on any type of surface. Each square meter weighs 100 grams and can be placed on the most expected places, such as windows and ceilings, or attached to personal objects such as coats.
According to Bassi, a Dine researcher, the first positive impact of any photovoltaic cell is that they use solar energy, called clean energy. However, organic cells, compared to inorganic ones, are even more sustainable, because they are simpler to produce, generating less waste to the environment.
The photovoltaic effect works from a chemical process discovered in 1839 by the French physicist Alexandre Becquerel. At the time, he discovered that the sun, when it illuminates certain materials, triggers an electric current. The first inorganic solar cells, however, were only developed in the 50s.
