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New System to Spray Solar Cells onto Solar Window Reduces Production Costs
A to Z Optics ^ | 01-12-10 | Staff

Posted on 01/12/2010 7:13:23 AM PST by PeaceBeWithYou

New Energy Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB: NENE), developer of MotionPower™ technologies for generating sustainable electricity from the kinetic energy of moving vehicles and SolarWindow™ technologies capable of generating electricity on see-thru glass windows, today announced that researchers have developed a novel, patent-pending process for ‘spraying’ solar cells and their related components onto glass – a technical achievement recently presented in AZoNano’s (peer-reviewed, Journal of Nanotechnology Online; Dec. 20, 2009), “Nanotechnology Thought Leaders” series.

“The ability to spray solar coatings directly onto glass follows on the heels of our recent breakthrough which replaced visibility-blocking metal with environmentally-friendly see-thru compounds, and marks an important advance in the development of our see-thru glass windows capable of generating electricity,” announced Mr. Meetesh V. Patel, President and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc.

“In commercial terms, this new spray technology could translate into important manufacturing advantages for our SolarWindow™, including significant cost-savings, high-speed production, and room-temperature deposition – common barriers to commercial success for innovative solar technologies.”

Once scaled-up for use in commercial-scale production, researchers anticipate the ability to spray solar coatings directly onto New Energy’s first-of-its-kind see-thru SolarWindow™, currently under development, could provide significant commercial production advantages over today’s thin-films. Conventional solar films are typically manufactured using expensive and slow manufacturing methods which rely on high-temperature and finicky ‘vacuum deposition’ processes for depositing solar materials onto substrates; the resultant products are simply too thick to allow for transparency, an important consideration in the development of a commercially viable solar-powered glass window.

Last week, New Energy announced that researchers successfully overcame one of the biggest transparency-related obstacles faced by scientists developing New Energy’s SolarWindow™ technology --- the presence of metal, an opaque material which blocks visibility and prevents light from passing through glass. Eliminating metal has proved especially challenging since the metal component acts as the negative ‘polar contact’ – an important function in collecting the electricity generated from solar cells on the surface of the glass.

Last week’s breakthrough replaces this ‘visibility-blocking’ metal with environmentally-friendly and more transparent compounds. These compounds now function as the negative polar contact and collect electricity from New Energy’s SolarWindow™.

The production of solar-generated electricity on glass is made possible by the world’s tiniest working solar cells, which along with their related components, have now been successfully sprayed on to glass surfaces by researchers currently developing the Company’s SolarWindow™.

These ultra-small solar cells measure less than 1/4 the size of a grain of rice, are fabricated using environmentally-friendly materials, and successfully produce electricity, as demonstrated in a published peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy of the American Institute of Physics.

Unique performance properties of New Energy’s ultra-small solar cells enable development of an ultra-thin film, only 1/1000th the thickness of a human hair, or 1/10th of a micrometer. In contrast, conventional thin films are exponentially thicker, measuring several micrometers thick and inhibiting transparency. In photovoltaic applications such as see-thru windows, where transparency is a primary concern, today’s thin film solar cells simply cannot be utilized to produce a transparent solar window for application in homes, offices, and commercial buildings.

There are nearly 5 million commercial buildings in America, according to the Energy Information Administration, and more than 80 million single detached homes. New Energy’s SolarWindow™ technology is under development for commercial application in such buildings.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: energy; solar; sprayon; windows
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To: PeaceBeWithYou

With names like MotionPower™, SolarWindow™ and the like, it seems to me that they have spent more money on trademarking than on product development.


21 posted on 01/12/2010 9:40:23 AM PST by Fractal Trader
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To: mvpel
Ok. I won't be snide. I will be quite direct. The reason for reflecting light from a building is to decrease heatloads on the building, which have to be removed by airconditioning. Capturing some of it is a losing proposition, since the amount of heat you now trap on the building is more than 10 times the energy you produce. Air conditioning away that heat takes another multiple of several. So for every kJ of heat you absorb, you have to expend several to remove it, but produce 1/10th of a kilojoule in electrical energy to help you remove it with.

If you try to capture the energy in the subvelocity airflow around the car you will increasse the drag on the car, unless you get so far from the car (the median barrier) that most of the flow energy has already dissipated into thin air.

This is not the first guy to try to violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics and he won't, sadly, be the last.

You will find that for every attempt to find a free ride on mother nature there is a pitfal, trap or swindle. You could find it depressing or you could wake up and realize that at least there is a perfectly wonderful opportunity before us already, nuclear power, and so god did not abandon us after all.

22 posted on 01/12/2010 10:05:01 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: Fractal Trader

I think you figured these guys out. To add a data point there is another outfit offers Phusor™s, which, as the name might suggest, “work” through cold fusion. I think they are also looking for “investors.”


23 posted on 01/12/2010 10:08:07 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

So why not put the see-thru solar cell coating before the reflective coating and capture what you can, and still reflect the heat.


24 posted on 01/12/2010 10:52:09 AM PST by AFreeBird (Going Rogue in 2012)
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To: LearnsFromMistakes
My shingles are buried under a foot of snow right now...

I'm in Louisiana so I could probably power both our houses in the summer with those shingles.

25 posted on 01/12/2010 11:51:01 AM PST by TangoLimaSierra (To the left the truth looks Right-Wing.)
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To: LearnsFromMistakes
My shingles are buried under a foot of snow right now...

So are mine.
It's also dark at night.
There are too many cloudy days.
etc...

Solar works better in certain parts of the world. It will never be a single solution. There is a need for storage of the power.
Where it will help most is with air conditioning which usually coincides with peak sun.

26 posted on 01/12/2010 11:57:33 AM PST by toast
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To: AndyJackson

The energy to run stuff in the building adds to its heat load no matter where the energy came from, so it’s a net wash.


27 posted on 01/12/2010 1:10:27 PM PST by steve-b (Intelligent Design -- "A Wizard Did It")
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To: mission9
Ok, ocean hydro is technically feasible. But if there really is a 10-20 year decline in temps, there are going to be lots of lawsuits against such efforts.

Suppose such a plant was built in the Gulf Stream off Florida's East Coast. It won't take long into a cold spell before folks from New York to Greenland to France are complaining that it's stealing heat from them by sucking energy==heat from the Gulf Stream.

Like nuclear power plants in the USA, I do think the primary cost for such ocean hydro might be for lawyers.

28 posted on 01/12/2010 3:43:59 PM PST by slowhandluke (It's hard to be cynical enough in this age.)
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To: steve-b
The energy to run stuff in the building adds to its heat load no matter where the energy came from, so it’s a net wash.

That isn't the point. This guy is trying to sell stock to investors by offering variations on perpetual motion machines, which he has carefully trademarked, but seems not to have patented, or he would have claimed those too. (hint: the US Patent Office does not patent perpetual motion machines.) The principle is quite simple really. Every engineering student learns the first law of thermo-dynamics - there is no free lunch. The second law is that you cannot even get a fair break.

Anytime someone like this has a claim that sounds like he is not giving mother nature her due, he is most likely cheating the first or second law.

29 posted on 01/12/2010 4:41:08 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Call me a sucker, but I can’t find any claims of “perpetual motion”, or anything approaching such.


30 posted on 01/12/2010 5:07:27 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, islam will cover the earth with darkness for a thousand years.)
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To: pingman

We get free energy the same way you get the free stuff on TV by paying the shipping and handling charges!!


31 posted on 01/12/2010 5:13:01 PM PST by handy old one (If you play in nature be prepared to be played with by nature!)
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