Exotic Materials In Solar Panels

Plastic plastic is a common.

Exotic materials in solar panels.

For this reason thin film solar panels are true to their name. Hydrogen is then used to reduce this gas to silane gas which is in turn heated to make molten silicon. The large majority of panels used in installations are safe silicon based panels. Thin cheap solar panels need tellurium which makes up a scant 0 0000001 percent of the earth s crust making it three times rarer than gold.

High performance batteries need lithium which is only easily extracted from briny pools in the andes. Organic molecules such as polymers and dyes synthesized in bulk from simple ingredients can form the light absorbing layer in a pv cell. Copper you can find copper in various components of a solar panel. These include the following.

The materials we use are in principle extremely inexpensive says stephen forrest who leads an optoelectronics research group at the university of michigan in ann arbor mi. In 2011 the average price of rare earth metals shot up by as much as 750 percent. Pure silicon is crystalline a structure necessary for photovoltaic cells. They are lean and bendable unlike a standard panel.

However if you re installing thin film technology there are additional toxic materials contained in the thin film panels itself such as cadmium telluride and copper indium selenide. The metallurgical grade silicon is exposed to hydrochloric acid and copper which produce trichlorosilane gas. Exotic highly efficient solar cells may soon get cheaper. Glass widely used in the design of solar panels glass can be found above conventional silicon solar cells.

Finally amorphous silicon cells create flexible solar panel materials that are often used in thin film solar panels. A new way to make the most efficient and powerful types of solar cells could help solar power compete with fossil fuels.