730W / kg, "as thin as paper" solar cells come out: production speed should be close to newspaper printing

CTOnews.com, Dec. 5 (Xinhua)-- A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently developed "paper-thin" solar cells that can be attached to any type of surface to absorb solar energy.

The solar cells developed this time are thinner than hair and can be laminated to the surface of sails, tents, tarpaulins, UAV wings and other equipment, providing longer-lasting performance.

The findings, published in Small Methods, are co-authored by Vladimir Bulovi Brovich, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT, Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, and Jeremiah Mwaura, a research scientist at the electronic research laboratory.

The research team chose Dinima composite fabric, printed the electrodes on the flat plastic, and then glued the plastic sheet to Dinima.

However, the photoelectric conversion rate of the battery is relatively low, producing only half the energy per unit area compared with traditional silicon panels, but 18 times the amount of electricity per kilogram.

During the test, the solar cell independently produced about 730 watts / kg of energy, and if deployed on Dinima fabric, it produced about 370 watts per kilogram.

CTOnews.com attached the reference address of the paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202200940