Research breakthrough improves solar panel technology 30%

Research led by RMIT University and the CSIRO has led to a breakthrough that improves solar panel technology efficiency by at least 30%.

Rather than silicon, researchers used dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). The dye in these cells absorbs light energy and produces a current that is transferred into a metal oxide called niobia. Researchers say niobia is an inexpensive, chemically stable, environmentally friendly material.

Associate Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh of RMIT’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering said that, using niobia, the research team was able to obtain a high conversion efficiency which was at least 30% higher than when using traditional DSSCs that use the metal oxide titania.

“The key to this huge success lies in structuring niobia into our desired nanoarchitecture by using a simple, highly controllable and large-scale producible technique,” he said.

“Interestingly, this so-called anodisation technique is widely used as a conventional method in various industries for generating hard coatings and glazed surfaces, but rarely in nanoniobia production.

“Our work suggests that niobia can be used as the star material in DSSCs and provides a viable solution to boost the conversion efficiency to the values that far exceed that of silicon-based solar cells.”

The research was conducted by RMIT in association with four universities: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); the University of New South Wales (UNSW); and the Korean Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. The findings were published in the journal ACS Nano.