Is There A Substitute For Silicone In A Solar Panel

A key feature in evaluating alternative solar photovoltaic materials is cell efficiency.

Is there a substitute for silicone in a solar panel.

Researchers from the university of cambridge in the united kingdom and mit the national renewable energy laboratory and colorado school of mines in the usa have been hard at work coming up with a silicon alternative for solar cells given that silicon needs to have extremely high levels of purity and as such is very energy intensive to produce. In spite of this a typical 60 cell crystalline silicon solar module produced today contains up to 12 grams of lead. Another downside of silicon solar cells is their manufacturing requires expensive ultra high purity silicon. A few promising new materials include dye sensitized solar cells organic photovoltaics perovskite solar cells and quantum dot photovoltaics.

Peskovite crystals which are naturally occuring look very promising as a cheaper alternative to silicon. As of today silicon is the cheapest material for the production of solar photovoltaic cells. Crystalline material could replace silicon to double efficiency of solar cells. As a result there is a lot of interest in alternative photovoltaic materials.

Commercial production of preskovite cells is yet.