7th-Grader Designs Three Dimensional Solar Cell

w1z4rd

w1z4rd

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"12-year-old William Yuan's invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. 'Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light'" Yuan said. 'I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.' Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. 'My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,' Yuan said. "If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it.""
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http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/18/177238

Kids are getting smarter and smarter.. its really great.
 
I once designed a car running on water...

But still. Great technology if it works. And combined with the Professor's @ WITS technology, means that one panel could possibly provide an entire house with energy without needed to spend 10's of thousands of rands on this technology.

Would put Eskom out of business ;)
 
I call BS on this. Maybe be did come up with some sort of idea for increased efficiency but the specifics are clearly wrong. The best current generation commercial triple junction PV cells are about 30% efficient. He claims that his cells are NINE TIMES more efficient. That makes them like, what, 270% efficient? Yeah, right. So his cells produce 2.7 times more power than what is contained in the sunlight that strikes it?

What will he come up with next? A cold fusion reactor? A perpetual motion device?
 
It says nine time more light absorption, not nine times the efficiency.
 
BlueCollar said:
It says nine time more light absorption, not nine times the efficiency.
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Dude, absorption = efficiency. Otherwise what's the point? I developed a new PV cell in my garage the other day. It absorbs 4729 TIMES more light than the best cells in the world. But it is only 0.1% efficient. Now where's my $25K scholarship?
 
StrongTurd said:
Dude, absorption = efficiency. Otherwise what's the point? I developed a new PV cell in my garage the other day. It absorbs 4729 TIMES more light than the best cells in the world. But it is only 0.1% efficient. Now where's my $25K scholarship?
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Well, 9 times the absorption with 1/2 the efficiency would produce 4.5 times the energy right? So absorption is therefore not efficiency.
 
BlueCollar said:
Well, 9 times the absorption with 1/2 the efficiency would produce 4.5 times the energy right? So absorption is therefore not efficiency.
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Says who? Nobody measures the performance of PV panels in terms of absorption because absorption means nothing when it does not directly correlate to efficiency. Absorption in itself means zip.

I could easily make a PV panel that absorbs more light than any other panel known to man. All I need to do is take a piece of thick glass and paint it with a few coats of black paint and then put it in the sun. That thing will absorb more sunlight than anything else on the market. But do you think it will be very efficient? Hardly.

I have learned long ago to be very sceptical of anybody that claims to produce anything that is by an order of magnitude better than anything else. Especially when the claim is made by a 12 year old boy. If you consider the amount of R&D that has gone into the design of PV panels in the last 50 years then do you honestly think that a primary school kid can do better up in his room after school?
 
StrongTurd said:
Says who? Nobody measures the performance of PV panels in terms of absorption because absorption means nothing when it does not directly correlate to efficiency. Absorption in itself means zip.

I could easily make a PV panel that absorbs more light than any other panel known to man. All I need to do is take a piece of thick glass and paint it with a few coats of black paint and then put it in the sun. That thing will absorb more sunlight than anything else on the market. But do you think it will be very efficient? Hardly.

I have learned long ago to be very sceptical of anybody that claims to produce anything that is by an order of magnitude better than anything else. Especially when the claim is made by a 12 year old boy. If you consider the amount of R&D that has gone into the design of PV panels in the last 50 years then do you honestly think that a primary school kid can do better up in his room after school?
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I agree with you entirely. I'm merely pointing out that efficiency and absorption aren't the same thing. It's lame that the article uses the word absorption because, as you pointed out, it's not a very useful term when talking about photovoltaics (unless it's mentioned in conjunction with efficiency).
 
Absorption in the context of his research is quite acceptable. Efficiency is calculated from the amount of light absorbed that can be converted to energy. If his pannel have the same efficiency than current commercial pannels (i.e. 30%) it means that he would produce 500 times more energy with the same ammount of light just because he can absorb more light. (Less light are reflected, scattered etc.)

Efficiency in solar panels is in other words not the effectiveness of the surface to trap photons (light) or absorb light.
His invention increases absorption by utelizing a broader spectra of light (wavelengths from UV to Visible light) through the geometry of his sell and the use of nano tubes. A lot more photons thus are trapped (absorbed) and it can produce more energy from that. 500 times more according to the article!


Hope that makes sence?
 
I never ever trusted anyone, most of all my science teacher what with how little they are paid, to show my secret inventions/ideas. I am also totally incapable of making any of them. Both money and skill are lacking for me.

Not that they would work, probably won't...but still :D
 
The problem lies elsewhere imo.

He is comparing his theoretical nanotube design with real-life cells.

Thats like saying my warp drive design pwns the hell out of anything BMW can build.
 
werries2 said:
Absorption in the context of his research is quite acceptable. Efficiency is calculated from the amount of light absorbed that can be converted to energy. If his pannel have the same efficiency than current commercial pannels (i.e. 30%) it means that he would produce 500 times more energy with the same ammount of light just because he can absorb more light. (Less light are reflected, scattered etc.)

Efficiency in solar panels is in other words not the effectiveness of the surface to trap photons (light) or absorb light.
His invention increases absorption by utelizing a broader spectra of light (wavelengths from UV to Visible light) through the geometry of his sell and the use of nano tubes. A lot more photons thus are trapped (absorbed) and it can produce more energy from that. 500 times more according to the article!


Hope that makes sence?
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Not really. Most PV panels that you and I can buy are about 12-14% efficient, by the way. It is only the exotic triple junction stuff from SpectraLab that is 30% efficient. Now, if a panel is 30% efficient then it means that it can convert 30% of the sun's energy that strikes it into electricity. Also, the sun's energy is roughly 1000W/m^2, not so? That's why a 1m^2 Spectralab PV panel will produce about 300 Watts under optimal conditions.

Now answer me this: How can you produce 500 times more than the 30% that you've already got? If your panel was 100% efficient (theoretically) then you'd still only generate 1000 Watt. So you're saying this kid can produce 300W * 500 = 150000 Watts (or 15 kiloWatt) from 1000 Watts of solar radiation. Does that not sound like voodoo magic to you? It does to me.

500 times my a**! If so then this little 12 year old kid has just solved the world's energy problems up in his bedroom. And they want to give him 25 grand for it? If I was him I'd tell them to stuff of and not to come back unless they've got $25 BILLION or so handy.
 
I think we are both trying to over simplify things.
All I can add is that absorbtion relates to the ammount of photons absorbed on the pannel/sel. If there are 500 times more photons absorbed it does not mean that you have 7000% more efficiency from 14% it could be as little as a 3% increase on efficiency.

The term efficiency is also used too loose here. Are we refering to the Energy conversion efficiency, the Thermodynamic Efficiency or the Quantum efficiency? 500 times more absorption would directly be related to the Quantum efficiency, but then photons don't have the same amount of energy so photons of less energy will contribute less to the final electricity generated.
 
werries2 said:
I think we are both trying to over simplify things.
All I can add is that absorbtion relates to the ammount of photons absorbed on the pannel/sel. If there are 500 times more photons absorbed it does not mean that you have 7000% more efficiency from 14% it could be as little as a 3% increase on efficiency.

The term efficiency is also used too loose here. Are we refering to the Energy conversion efficiency, the Thermodynamic Efficiency or the Quantum efficiency? 500 times more absorption would directly be related to the Quantum efficiency, but then photons don't have the same amount of energy so photons of less energy will contribute less to the final electricity generated.
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Ja well, I'll lick this kid's thermodynamic *ss if he has indeed come up with practical, commercially viable PV panels that are even 3% more efficient than the best panels from SpectraLab. Like I said before, billions have been spent by some very clever people over the last 50 years in advancing the state of the art in photovoltaics. 3% is a very big deal. Again, I'm calling BS on this.

And what's more, who the hell cares how many gazillion percent absorption improvement a panel offers; all that matters in photovoltaics is the wattage that you can generate per surface area and the cost thereof.
 
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I agree with Strongturd, but hell, this guy is talented :eek:

Honors/Awards
• 2008 Davidson Fellow
• 2008 Northwest Science Expo, Second Place
• 2008 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Best Engineering Project
• 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State (Verbal)
• 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State (Quantitative)
• 2008 High Tech Kids First Lego League First Lego League (FLL) International Open
(team), Second Place Champion’s Award
• 2008 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
• 2008 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Second Place
• 2007 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State
• 2007 Intel Oregon FLL Champion’s Award (team), First Place
• 2007 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
• 2007 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Second Place
• 2007 World Taekwondo Headquarters: Poom Certificate
• 2006 Intel Oregon FLL State Tournament Young Team, First Place
• 2006 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
• 2005 Intel Oregon FLL Regional Tournament (team), First Place Award
• 2005 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament (team), Second Place
Community Activities
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StrongTurd said:
No doubt.
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WHAT????!!! a LEGO Award? are you fscking kidding me?
I have wanted one of those since I was 4! he is talented.
ok ok i'm just kidding around here....
The problem lies with that it's only his theory - not the same as real performance.
 
AcidRaZor said:
I once designed a car running on water...

But still. Great technology if it works. And combined with the Professor's @ WITS technology, means that one panel could possibly provide an entire house with energy without needed to spend 10's of thousands of rands on this technology.

Would put Eskom out of business ;)
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eishhh if only:rolleyes:
 
I wonder how big the role is of the mother and father in this kid's life.

Kids should be having fun, playing ,not searching for ways to end the worlds power shortage.
 
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