Dye-sensitized solar cells are close to break a new record, Michael Grätzel said at the conference "Energy from the Sun" (Chia, Sardinia Island).

Yesterday at the conference "Energy from the Sun: Computational Chemists and Physicists Take up the Challenge" (Chia, Sardinia Island) Michael Grätzel (Director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland) announced that we are close to break a new record for the dye-sensitized solar cells, after the well-known efficiencies value (12.3%) that appeared in the November 4 issue of Science magazine: Porphyrin-Sensitized Solar Cells with Cobalt (II/III)–Based Redox Electrolyte Exceed 12 Percent Efficiency (Science, Vol. 334 no. 6056 pp. 629-634). This performance is now comparable to silicon-based solar cells that are on the market today.
The conference, organized by CECAM (Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) and CNR IOM SLACS (Istituto Officina dei Materiali of CNR, Sardinian Laboratory for Computational Materials Science, University of Cagliari) was held since 10 to 14 September 2012 in the Chia Laguna Resort (Sardinia Island).
Grätzel underlined the high level of the conference and the discussions between research teams from allover the world and the place chosen by the organization, the Sardinia Island, is perfect to speak about the applications of the solar energy.
Michael Grätzel is author of over 900 publications and inventor of over 50 patents. The first article on this theme was “A low cost, high efficiency solar cell based on dye-sensitized colloidal TiO2 films" by Michael Grätzel and Brian O'Regan (Nature 353, 737-740, 24 October 1991). This work has been cited over 88000 times (h-index 138) for this reason Grätzel is among the 10 most highly cited chemists in the world. For his work on Dye-sensitised solar cells, Michael Grätzel has been awarded the 2012 Albert Einstein World Award of Science. The Interdisciplinary Committee of the World Cultural Council has selected Professor Grätzel because of Dye-sensitised solar cells capability to significantly increase the spread of sustainable, renewable energy throughout the world and make a major role in low-cost and large-scale solutions for renewable energy.
A previous award for Michael Grätzel was the Millennium Technology Grand Prize received in June 2010.

The Dye-sensitised solar cell is also the only photovoltaic device that achieves the separation of the functions light absorption from charge carrier transport. As in natural photosynthesis, the role of the sensitizer is to absorb light and generate energy, under the form of electric charges, then - as Michael Grätzel told to me - the main application of this device will be on the surface of buildings. Other attractive features of Dye-sensitised solar cells derive from their inherent nature: it is simple to obtain using conventional roll-printing techniques, is semi-flexible (and semi-transparent) which offers a variety of uses not applicable to glass-based systems (as we normally see) and most of the materials used are low-cost.

Andrea Mameli www.linguaggiomacchina.it September 15, 2012

• Nanostructured Photosystems for the Generation of Electricity and Fuels from Sunlight (Michael Grätzel, CECAM Conference: "Energy from the Sun: Computational Chemists and Physicists Take up the Challenge"  September 14, 2012, Chia Laguna Resort, Cagliari, Sardinia Island, Italy)
• All-Solid-State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells With High Efficiency In (Chung, Byunghong Lee, Jiaqing He, Robert P. H. Chang, Mercouri G. Kanatzidis. Nature, May 23, 2012, pp 486-489)
• Dye-sensitized solar cells (Michael Grätzel. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology C: Photochemistry Reviews, Volume 4, Issue 2, 31 October 2003, Pages 145–153)
• Biography of an Experiment: The Invention of the Dye-sensitized Solar Cell (Haverford College) 
• Best research cell efficiencies (National Center for Photovoltaics - NCPV, NREL)
• Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSC): Materials and Devices (A. Abbotto, Milano-Bicocca, centro per lo Studio di Materiali, Processi e Dispositivi perl’Energia Solare) 
• Building and automotive signify main opportunities for DSSCs (Sara Ver-Bruggen, Plastic Electronics, 26 Apr 2010)
 

 

The Grätzel cell. Image by the Millennium Technology Prize

Sony’s prototype Hana-Akari: this lamp use a Dye-sensitized solar cell to generate electricity