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"V3Solar has developed a cone-shaped solar energy harvester that is claimed to generate over 20 times more electricity than a flat panel thanks to a combination of concentrating lenses, dynamic spin, conical shape, and advanced electronics."

Hmm.. that seems counter intuitive... how would it ever be that much better than a flat panel? Rotating the PV will only make sure only parts are illuminated. Operating temperature is a better argument, but that comes at the cost of exposure. Came across this little gem of a webpage, maybe we should outsource our impossibility EM drive work next time? :) https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-v3solars-spinning-solar-panel-cone-spin-cell-coolspin.t1166/

interesting move ...

Commercial project for wearable solar cells by 2015 ...

The idea has been around for already some time (2008) but I like it despite the challenges/trade-off: visible vs IR photovoltaics, black leaves would be better... Piezo + classical PV would already be great... Optimizing the leave shape & distribution for both wind and sun energy harvesting could be interesting...

Using random nanostructuring highly absorptive materials were made which are of interest for photovoltaic or thermovoltaic applications

Yes! Black Metal... definitely something the ACT should look into

Black Metal...sounds like something for the ACT Magic Cards. But apart from that - is it possible to shift the PV type of absorption into gamma ray spectrum?

We discussed this today during coffee. The inventor claims that he claims that a pressure differential can push hydrogen through a proton conductive membrane (thereby stripping off the electrons) which flow through an electric circuit and provide electric power. The type of membrane is fairly similar to that found in a hydrogen fuel cell. If the pressure differential is cause by selective heating this is in essence a heat engine that directly produces electricity. The inventor claims that this could be a high efficiency alternative to thermoelectric devices and could even outperform PV and Sterling engines with an efficiency close to that of fuel cells (e.g., ~60% @ dT=600K). I could not find any scientific publications as the inventor is not affiliated to any University - he has however an impressive number of patents from a very wide field (e.g., the "Super Soaker" squirt gun) and has worked on several NASA and US military projects. His current research seams to be funded by the latter as well. Here are some more links that I found: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/shooting-for-the-sun/308268/ http://www.johnsonems.com/?q=node/13 http://scholar.google.nl/scholar?q=%22lonnie+g+johnson%22+&btnG=&hl=nl&as_sdt=0%2C5

Turn on Metal and they will boost their efficiency by 666%!

the title is at best misleading ... they add piezoelectrics into PV cells ... "manufacturing a piezoelectric material, zinc oxide nanorods, into the solar cells increased their efficiency when sound waves were played"

interesting collaboration ... unfortunately no prices yet available

This guy solved a problem many people are trying to solve!!! The optimal control problem for the three body problem (restricted, circular) can be solved using continuation of the secondary gravity parameter and some clever adaptation of the boundary conditions!! His presentation was an eye opener ... making the work of many pretty useless now :)

I like when there are discussions evolving around entries

and on your problem with the RSS Tamas: its the same for me, you get the comments only for entries that you have posted or that you have commented on ...

nice concept - still have to look closer into it ...

remember that I wanted to do this at a University lab course! ...LS

of interest? -LS

The first complete theory of how plasmons produce "hot carriers" has been developed by researchers in the US. The new model could help make this process of producing carriers more efficient, which would be good news for enhancing solar-energy conversion in photovoltaic devices.

I did not read the paper but what is further down written in the article, does not give much hope that this actually gives much more insight than what we had nor that it could be used in any way to improve current PV cells soon: e.g. "To fully exploit these carriers for such applications, researchers need to understand the physical processes behind plasmon-induced hot-carrier generation. Nordlander's team has now developed a simple model that describes how plasmons produce hot carriers in spherical silver nanoparticles and nanoshells. The model describes the conduction electrons in the metal as free particles and then analyses how plasmons excite hot carriers using Fermi's golden rule - a way to calculate how a quantum system transitions from one state into another following a perturbation. The model allows the researchers to calculate how many hot carriers are produced as a function of the light frequency used to excite the metal, as well as the rate at which they are produced. The spectral profile obtained is, to all intents and purposes, the "plasmonic spectrum" of the material. Particle size and hot-carrier lifetimes "Our analyses reveal that particle size and hot-carrier lifetimes are central for determining both the production rate and the energies of the hot carriers," says Nordlander. "Larger particles and shorter lifetimes produce more carriers with lower energies and smaller particles produce fewer carriers, but with higher energies."

Light-induced reversal of ion segregation in mixed-halide perovskites