Solar Energy

Low-cost solar-powered water filter removes lead, other contaminants

Published

4 years ago

April 1, 2021

sarosh

Low-cost solar-powered water filter removes lead, other contaminants

A new invention that uses sunlight to drive water purification could help solve the problem of providing clean water off the grid.

The device resembles a large sponge that soaks up water but leaves contaminants – like lead, oil and pathogens – behind. To collect the purified water from the sponge, one simply places it in sunlight. The researchers described the device in a paper published this week in the journal Advanced Materials.

The inspiration for the device came from the pufferfish, a species that takes in water to swell its body when threatened, and then releases water when danger passes, said the device’s co-inventor Rodney Priestley, the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Princeton’s vice dean for innovation.

“To me, the most exciting thing about this work is it can operate completely off-grid, at both large and small scales,” Priestley said. “”It could also work in the developed world at sites where low-cost, non-powered water purification is needed.””

Xiaohui Xu, a Princeton Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and co-inventor, helped develop the gel material at the heart of the device.

“”Sunlight is free,” Xu said, “and the materials to make this device are low-cost and non-toxic, so this is a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to generate pure water.””

The authors noted that the technology delivers the highest passive solar water- purification rate of any competing technology.

One way to use the gel would be to place it in a water source in the evening and the next day place it in the sunlight to generate the day’s drinking water, Xu said.

The gel can purify water contaminated with petroleum and other oils, heavy metals such as lead, small molecules, and pathogens such as yeast. The team showed that the gel maintains its ability to filter water for at least ten cycles of soaking and discharge with no detectable reduction in performance. The results suggest that the gel can be used repeatedly.

To demonstrate the device in real-world conditions, Xu took the device to Lake Carnegie on the Princeton University campus.

Xu placed the gel into the cool water (25 degree Celsius, or 77 degrees Fahrenheit) of the lake, which contains microorganisms that make it unsafe to drink, and let it soak up the lake water for an hour.

At the end of the hour, Xu lifted the gel out of the water and set it on top of a container. As the sun warmed the gel, pure water trickled into the container over the next hour.

The device filters water much more quickly than existing methods of passive solar-powered water purification methods, the researchers said. Most other solar-powered approaches use sunlight to evaporate water, which takes much longer than absorption and release by the new gel.

Other water filtration methods require electricity or another source of power to pump water through a membrane. Passive filtration via gravity, as with typical household countertop filters, requires regular replacement of filters.

At the heart of the new device is a gel that changes depending on temperature. At room temperature, the gel can act as a sponge, soaking up water. When heated to 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit), the gel does the opposite – it pushes the water out of its pores.

The gel consists of a honeycomb-like structure that is highly porous. Closer inspection reveals that the honeycomb consists of long chains of repeating molecules, known as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), that are cross-linked to form a mesh. Within the mesh, some regions contain molecules that like to have water nearby, or are hydrophilic, while other regions are hydrophobic or water-repelling.

At room temperature, the chains are long and flexible, and water can easily flow via capillary action into the material to reach the water-loving regions. But when the sun warms the material, the hydrophobic chains clump together and force the water out of the gel.

This gel sits inside two other layers that stop contaminants from reaching the inner gel. The middle layer is a dark-colored material called polydopamine that transforms sunlight into heat and also keeps out heavy metals and organic molecules. With PDA in place, the sun’s light can heat up the inner material even if the actual outdoor temperature is not very warm.

The final external layer is a filtering layer of alginate, which blocks pathogens and other materials from entering the gel.

Xu said that one of the challenges to making the device was to formulate the inner gel to have the correct properties for water absorption. Initially the gel was brittle, so she altered the composition until it was flexible. Xu synthesized the materials and conducted studies to assess the device’s ability to purify water, aided by coauthors Sehmus Ozden and Navid Bizmark, postdoctoral research associates in the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials.

Sujit Datta, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, and Craig Arnold, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials, collaborated on the development of the technology.

The team is exploring ways to make the technology widely available with the help of Princeton Innovation, which supports University researchers in the translation of discoveries into technologies and services for the benefit of society.

Source link

Solar Energy

Hybrid Transparent Electrodes Boost Efficiency and Lifespan of Perovskite Solar Cells

Published

7 days ago

March 6, 2025

sarosh

Hybrid Transparent Electrodes Boost Efficiency and Lifespan of Perovskite Solar Cells

by Simon Mansfield

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Feb 21, 2025

Bifacial perovskite solar cells, known for their ability to capture sunlight from both the front and rear surfaces, have taken a significant step forward thanks to researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dharwad. Their development of a novel NiO/Ag/NiO (NAN) hybrid transparent electrode has led to enhancements in efficiency, durability, and infrared transparency, opening new possibilities for solar energy applications.

A recent study published in the Journal of Photonics for Energy (JPE) details how the IIT Dharwad team designed and fabricated highly transparent bifacial solar cells utilizing a three-layer NAN electrode. This innovative structure, created using a low-energy physical vapor deposition method, resulted in an electrode with extremely low electrical resistance and high transmittance of visible light.

When incorporated into the bifacial solar cells, the NAN transparent electrode delivered impressive power conversion efficiencies (PCE), achieving 9.05% and 6.54% when exposed to light from different directions. The cells also exhibited a high bifaciality factor of 72%, demonstrating their effectiveness in utilizing light from both sides.

Beyond efficiency, these solar cells displayed exceptional durability, retaining 80% of their initial performance for over 1,000 hours without the need for protective encapsulation. Additionally, their ability to transmit substantial near-infrared light makes them suitable for applications such as thermal windows and advanced optoelectronic technologies.

With a thickness of less than 40 nm, the NAN electrode is particularly advantageous for integration into building materials and tandem solar cell systems. Senior researcher Dhriti Sundar Ghosh, an associate professor of physics at IIT Dharwad, emphasized the broad implications of their work, stating, “This study offers a blueprint for designing transparent electrodes in bifacial perovskite solar cells, paving the way for advancements in tandem devices, agrivoltaics, and automotive solar technologies.”

The findings reinforce the growing potential of bifacial perovskite solar cells in renewable energy solutions, contributing to the development of more efficient and adaptable solar power technologies.

Research Report:Hybrid top transparent electrode for infrared-transparent bifacial perovskite solar cells

Source link

Solar Energy

Bio-inspired approach creates bespoke photovoltaics

Published

7 days ago

March 6, 2025

sarosh

Bio-inspired approach creates bespoke photovoltaics

by David Nutt for Cornell Chronicle

Ithica NY (SPX) Feb 21, 2025

There is more to photovoltaic panels than the materials that comprise them: The design itself can also drive – or potentially diminish – the widespread adoption of solar technology.

Put bluntly: Most solar panels are not much to look at. And their flat, nonflexible composition means they can only be affixed to similarly flat structures. But what if photovoltaic panels were instead a hinged, lightweight fabric that was aesthetically attractive and could wrap around complex shapes, even contorting its form to better absorb sunlight?

Thus was born the idea for HelioSkin, an interdisciplinary project led by Jenny Sabin, the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Weisenberger Professor in Architecture in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, in collaboration with Itai Cohen, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Adrienne Roeder, professor in the Section of Plant Biology in the School of Integrative Plant Science, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and at the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology.

“What we’re really passionate about is how the system could not only produce energy in a passive way, but create transformational environments in urban or urban-rural settings,” Sabin said. “Sustainability is about performance and function, but equally, it’s about beauty and getting people to get excited about it, so they want to participate. The grand goal is to inspire widespread adoption of solar for societal impact.”

Sabin, the inaugural chair of the new multicollege Department of Design Tech, has made a career of collaborating with diverse disciplines and taking cues not just from architecture, but also engineering. And physics. And mathematics. And, perhaps most importantly, biology. All of her projects are united by the same question: How might buildings and their integrated material systems behave more like organisms, responding and adapting to their local environments?

“Nature is not efficient,” Sabin said. “It’s resilient, and biology is in it for the long game, over much longer time scales. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that plants that track the sun exhibit a photosynthetic advantage. And we think that’s a pretty powerful way to think about sustainability and resiliency in architecture.”

Sabin’s design interests address a very real need. The primary convergent problem is that 40% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States comes from buildings, according to the International Energy Agency.

“By developing a new solar skin product that can scale, we aim to turn the needle by getting homeowners and businesses to adopt solar to reduce the 28% of CO2 that comes from the heating, lighting and cooling of buildings,” Sabin said.

HelioSkin originated in a partnership between Sabin and Mariana Bertoni, an energy engineer at Arizona State University, who is also a member of the HelioSkin team. Together they combined computational design, digital fabrication and 3D printing to create customized filters and photovoltaic panel assemblies – what Sabin calls “nonstandard angularity” – that could simultaneously boost light absorption and architectural beauty. The key to that effort was looking at the mechanics of heliotropism – how sunflowers track sunlight.

For HelioSkin, that research foundation expanded to include Roeder’s expertise in heliotropism and cellular morphogenesis – i.e., how plant cells grow to bend the plant toward the sun – and Cohen’s specialization in using geometric methods such as origami and kirigami to improve the mechanical performance of metamaterials, increasing their flexibility while expending very little energy.

The flowering Arabidopsis plant is an ideal model for HelioSkin because, as “the fruit fly of the plant world” according to Roeder, it’s easy to study at the cellular level. Those cells play a vital role in changing the curvature of the plant’s stem as it angles toward the sunlight, with the Arabidopsis’ hormones causing the cells on its sunless side to expand by 25%, bending the stem 90 degrees.

“We’ve already figured out how to translate our plant cells’ tracking mechanism into Jenny’s architectural software,” Roeder said. “Now we have to start figuring out how to make that transition in HelioSkin.”

‘The human-centered design process’

The ultimate goal is to generate a mechanically tracking solar-collection skin for retractable roofs, stadiums and skyscrapers, but to get there, the team is launching a three-year pilot project whereby they create small solar canopies for backyards, which can then be scaled up for urban parks.

Bringing that vision to market not only involves scientific innovation and smart design, but requires industry partnerships, capital and a marketing plan.

The project was launched through the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator program, which last year awarded the team $650,000 in phase I funding. The team has applied for the next phase of funding – $5 million over three years.

The industry partners include E Ink and Rainier Industries, which are helping integrate photovoltaics and ePaper onto lightweight, stretchable architectural fabric. SunFlex, a company that uses laser-welded back contact module technology for photovoltaics manufacturing, is onboard to help refine the HelioSkin prototypes in phase 2 – the sensing, the wiring, the arrangement of the panels, plus the geometry and substrate.

By the pilot project’s second year, the team plans to have a full-scale backyard canopy prototype that can potentially provide light and power outdoor appliances; by the third year, they aim to be in the early stages of commercialization.

As part of their commercialization plan, the team conducted extensive marketing analysis and interviews that showed HelioSkin’s gross cost, the cost-per-watt and system capacity were competitive with existing PV products.

“This was a really encouraging and exciting process to go through, to see how we compare to existing products and the potential that we have to then scale,” Sabin said. “The human-centered design process, including engaging people in many different industries, from end users to potential stakeholders to people that work for the energy grid and the state or the region – that’s been a big part of our process, and it’s been really helpful.”

The analysis revealed niche applications that the team hadn’t initially considered, such as “big box” commercial businesses that want to pursue solar to attain net-zero emissions but are also interested in display advertising or colorful pattern change for aesthetic applications. To that end, the team is working with E Ink to create a HelioSkin with electrically powered responsive display features, so solar skins can be placed on retail structures and stadiums and function as ever-changing billboards.

“This was something that came out of interviews,” Sabin said. “We had never thought about these types of applications.”

One of the virtues of working with E Ink is the company uses roll-to-roll printing to mass produce photovoltaic sheets – the same method that makes the low-cost manufacturing of perovskite photovoltaics feasible.

“The basic idea is to try to print things in 2D, which is cheap, and then morph it into 3D, allowing it to curve around structures,” Cohen said. “You can’t just take a normal sheet of paper and wrap something. It’s going to have all sorts of creases to it. Like if you try to wrap an orange, you get all these crinkles. One of the innovations that we came up with was to cut the paper into a pattern of panels and hinges that allows it to locally stretch around these round objects. A second strategy we came up with is to use fabric as a way to make the hinge. Fabric is floppy enough to give you that hinge-like behavior.”

In her experimental architecture practice, Sabin has spent more than 15 years developing large urban-scale canopies and architectural installations, experience that has served her well in launching a product.

“There’s a strong focus on commercialization and developing IP management plans. As a designer, I have a practice, and so I find this really interesting,” Sabin said. “But it’s also completely new for most of my collaborators. They don’t necessarily think about this level of application and spinning out a product. So the learning curve around that is pretty steep for all of us.”

The ability to collaborate across disciplines is what initially drew Sabin to Cornell in 2011. It’s a place where “everybody has their door open,” she said. The excitement, and the opportunities for impact, are palpable.

“Bottom line, we are in New York’s mecca for solar,” she said. “So there’s a lot going on, both in terms of innovative research, but also applied systems, in farming and agrivoltaics, solar farms, etc. So that dynamic community of people actively working on a common set of goals and questions and problems is super exciting for us, too.”

Source link

Solar Energy

China aims to add 200 GW in renewables

Published

1 week ago

March 4, 2025

sarosh

China aims to add 200 GW in renewables

by Simon Mansfield

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Mar 04, 2025

China is poised to make another substantial push in renewable energy expansion this year, targeting the addition of more than 200 gigawatts of renewable capacity. According to the National Energy Administration (NEA), this will contribute to an overall power generation capacity of approximately 10.6 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2025.

The nation’s total installed power capacity is expected to exceed 3.6 billion kilowatts by the end of the year, as outlined in the NEA’s newly released energy work guidelines. China is also advancing efforts to establish a unified national power market, with non-fossil fuel power generation projected to make up around 60 percent of total installed capacity. Additionally, non-fossil energy is anticipated to constitute about 20 percent of total energy consumption.

Industry analysts indicate that while new market-based pricing mechanisms for renewable energy grid connections introduce some uncertainty, the 200 GW target, though moderate, still provides ample opportunities for stakeholders in the renewable energy sector.

“The 200 GW installation goal for this year accounts for just 56 percent of the total wind and solar capacity added in 2024, but it underscores China’s continued commitment to renewable energy,” noted Zhu Yicong, vice-president of renewables and power research at Rystad Energy.

Zhu also acknowledged concerns raised following the NEA’s latest directive requiring renewable energy producers to fully integrate into power markets and adhere to market-based electricity pricing from June. “Although a vast number of renewable projects are either under development or nearing construction across various provinces, uncertainties regarding future financial returns could lead to delays in project implementation,” she said.

To enhance the market value of renewable energy and align prices with supply-demand dynamics, the National Development and Reform Commission and the NEA recently issued a notice emphasizing competitive market mechanisms for electricity pricing.

Industry projections suggest that renewable electricity prices could decline under the new pricing system, given the low variable costs associated with sources such as solar power, particularly during peak daylight hours. This price decline could introduce hesitation among investors assessing new projects.

Despite a relatively modest target for new installations this year, the industry sees this as a strategic approach, allowing developers time to adapt to evolving market conditions. “The moderate goal enables market participants to refine sustainable strategies without facing excessive pressure for rapid installation,” Zhu added.

Experts recommend that renewable energy developers navigate the transition to market-driven pricing by securing power purchase agreements, integrating battery storage solutions, and optimizing energy output for competitiveness.

China continues to prioritize renewable energy as a fundamental component of its green economy and dual-carbon objectives. In 2024, newly installed renewable capacity accounted for 86 percent of the nation’s total new power installations. The cumulative share of renewables in the country’s total installed capacity reached a record 56 percent, according to NEA data.

While renewable energy development surges, China’s overall energy production is set to maintain steady growth. Coal production will remain stable with some planned expansion, while crude oil output is expected to stay above 200 million metric tons. The country also plans to bolster its oil and gas reserves to enhance energy security.

Source link