MIT and Boston Researchers Make Special Solar Thermal Flat Panels

Solar power when we talk about, we usually think of solar water heater, solar cells etc. Recently there have been attempts to increase efficiency of solar cells using nanocones technology by Oak Ridge National laboratory professors. This time Researchers from Boston and MIT have together invented a type of solar flat panels called as ‘Solar thermal flat panels’ which would prove a boon for converting solar energy in to thermal energy. These Solar thermal flat panels are eight times more efficient than existing ‘Solar flat panels’, as claimed by researchers.

#-Link-Snipped-#Earlier we had two different systems. One in which we could generate hot water and the other one which would generate electricity. This innovation aims at producing more efficient conversion of energy along with combining the two. Researchers from MIT and Boston University submitted a paper in journal ‘Nature materials’. Zhifeng Ren, Co- Author of paper and Boston College Professor of Physics said, “We have developed a flat panel that is a hybrid capable of generating hot water and electricity in the same system". He further added, "The ability to generate electricity by improving existing technology at minimal cost makes this type of power generation self-sustaining from a cost standpoint".

The team consists of a Massachusetts clean energy research company co-founded by Ren and Chen, MIT's Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering Gang Chen, Boston College and MIT graduate students and researchers at GMZ Energy and

Team studied conventional solar panels and made a research on how to improve it. They wanted to improve the efficiency of light absorbing surface. Team used nano structured materials to solve the problem. The device which they designed has an n/p type thermoelectric semiconductor. These materials are actually based on Bi₂Te₃. The panel consists of three types layers. The first one consists of an absorber plate and the opposite plate works as a heat sink. The nano structured materials are sandwiched in between these two plates. Both thermoelectric materials i.e., p-type and n-type were of size 1.35×1.35×1.65 mm³.

This thermoelectric material is actually soldered to the heat sink which is made up of copper. Heat conducted through copper substrate is concentrated in this sandwiched material. The bottom copper plate offers a protection from radiation losses while also serving as an electrode. Heat efficiency for AM1, 1kWm^-2 conditions was about 4.6% as found under laboratory conditions.

Considering the fact and calculations under same conditions, it was found that there was a seven to eight times efficiency rise for the new design. It is quite promising to note that we can produce electricity along with hot water in your own homes. It would mean that you can drastically cut down your electricity bills just by installation of this new technology. As soon as it will be commercially launched, it will be a great leap towards production of green energy and would be termed as a very good innovation.

Source: ScienceDaily Image: #-Link-Snipped-#