Collecting the available solar light efficiently is a problem with most of the solar panels supplied in the markets today. A majority of them harvest only 20% of the available light. A flexible solar sheet developed by an engineer from the University of Missouri captures over 90% of the available light.
Patrick Pinhero, an associate professor in the MU Chemical Engineering Department
According to Patrick Pinhero, Chemical Engineering Department’s Associate Professor from the University, the traditional energy harvesting methods deployed in the solar modules fail to collect most of the accessible solar light. The new device developed by him and his team known as nantenna is a thin and malleable sheet of small antennas that are designed to collect the heat generated during the industrial process and change it into electric power. The team is looking forward to deploying the same concept in developing a solar energy harvesting nantenna device to accumulate the solar radiation available in the optical and near infrared regions of the solar band.
Pinhero and his team in coordination with Garrett Moddel, University of Colorado’s electrical engineering professor and his erstwhile Idaho National Laboratory team have now formulated a concept to obtain electric power from the gathered heat and sunlight by utilizing an exclusive high-speed electrical circuitry. The team also associates with Dennis Slafer, an official from the Cambridge, Mass, located MicroContinuum to carry forward the developed technologies into easily producible equipment enabling mass production.
As a part of its development plan, the team is trying to get grant from private investors as well as the U.S. Department of Energy for its venture of producing an energy harvesting equipment for use in the solar farms and heat-process factories. The team is looking forward to introducing its new solar product that can be integrated into roof shingle products or custom-built to run power vehicles.
Source: http://www.missouri.edu/