Printable solar cells that can be folded up when not in use

Here’s a photovoltaic cell that can be printed onto paper. The manufacturing technique is almost as simple as using an inkjet printer. The secret is in the ink itself. It takes five layers deposited on the paper in a vacuum chamber. But that’s a heck of a lot easier than current solar cell fabrication practices. In fact, is sounds … Read the rest

Things that kill you, hacked for clean energy

Tobacco and E coli can wreak havoc on your body causing serious damage if not death. Some researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have found a way to take these potentially dangerous organisms and make them do our bidding. By genetically engineering a virus they have shown that the two can be used to grow solar cells. … Read the rest

Solar batteries

solarbatt

[Knut Karlsen] put together a prototype set of solar rechargeable batteries. He always seemed to have batteries laying around on his worktable and figured they might as well be charging. The flexible solar cells were given to him by researchers at the IFE and are rated at 1.8V. He used superglue to secure them to the C cells. A … Read the rest

60 Watt solar panel built from cells

Our love for solar projects continues on with this method to make your own solar panels. [Mike] built a 60 watt solar panel from individual solar cells he purchased off eBay. Procuring parts off of eBay normally causes others hardship when they try to duplicate the project, however in this case there are so many types of cells people can … Read the rest