Plastic solar panels

More on technology. A new technique developed by Princeton University engineers for producing electricity-conducting plastics could dramatically lower the cost of manufacturing solar panels. Plastics could represent a low-cost alternative to indium tin oxide (ITO), an expensive conducting material currently used in solar panels.

Conductive polymers [plastics] have been around for a long time, but processing them to make something useful degraded their ability to conduct electricity. Now the researchers are able to shape the plastics into a useful form while maintaining high conductivity. They developed a way to relax the structure of the plastics by treating them with an acid after they were processed into the desired form.

Using the method, they were able to make a plastic transistor, a fundamental component of electronics that is used to amplify and switch electronic signals. They produced the electrodes of the transistor by printing the plastic onto a surface, a fast and cheap method similar to the way an ink-jet printer produces a pattern on a piece of paper.

By allowing plastic solar cells to be manufactured using low-cost printing techniques and by replacing ITO as the primary conducting material, the new plastic holds potential for lowering the cost of solar panels. The researchers anticipate that the plastics also could replace expensive metals used in other electronic devices, such as flexible displays, etc.

Do we hear someone asking ‘where do plastics come from’??? That's another story.