The Third Generation Solar Panel Organic Solar Cell
By Thawngno
Organic solar cell, also known as polymer solar cell is a type of photovoltaic that uses organic electronics for light absorption and charge transport to produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect. Organic solar cells are made from organic compounds or polymers, while regular cells are made primarily of silicon.
Organic solar cells are thin and flexible enough that they can be printed repeatedly on a thin, flexible surface that can be furled like a roll of paper towels. They can be mass produced at scale using roll-to-roll processing; the materials comprising them can be easily found in the earth and could be applied to solar cells through green chemistry; they can be semitransparent and therefore less visually intrusive—meaning they can be mounted on windows or screens and are ideal for mobile devices; they are ultra-flexible and can stretch; and they can be ultra-lightweight. They can bend or curve around structures or even be incorporated into clothing.
Unlike silicon solar cells, however, organic cells are highly vulnerable to moisture, oxygen and sunlight itself. State-of-the-art remediation involves incapsulating the cell, which adds to production cost and unit weight, while reducing efficiency.
Why it is not widely used
The silicon solar cells that we are using widely usually covert 15-22% of sunlight, with a world record for a silicon cell of 27.3% in UK. But organics have long lingered at around half this rate. The efficiency of organic solar cells is less comparing to silicon solar cells. They are stable in the dark but degrade in the light conditions. Moreover, as electricity cannot flow very easily in organic solar cells, its efficiency is limited. This is due to poor generation as well as extraction of electrical charges in organic solar cell.
Besides, its lifetime is less comparing to silicon solar cell as organic materials degrade rapidly in ambient exposure. Moisture and air along with sunlight further degrades its performance over time.
Advantages of organic solar cell
Following are the benefits or advantages of organic solar cell.
- It is light in weight.
- It is semi-transparent.
- It is environmentally friendly.
- Organic Solar cells are 1000 times thinner compare to silicon solar cells. Hence it results into huge savings on materials and consecutively they are cheaper.
- It is flexible due to use of PV modules.
- It offers short energy payback time.
- It is easy to integrate.
Future potential of the organic solar cell
Organic solar cells have yet to commercially compete with silicon solar cells, also known as first generation solar cell, and other thin-film cells, also known as second generation solar cell. Further improvements in performance is also needed. But recently, Researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering have discovered a remarkable means of making organic solar panels more robust, including conferring resistance to oxygen, water and light by doing the opposite: removing, not adding, material.
One of the leading organic solar cell researchers, Mitsubishi Chemical plans to manufacture organic solar cells first for industrial use to increase name recognition. It then plans to make them available for all consumers, projecting that the business will take off sometime after 2020.
Since the cost of manufacturing is very low the market for organic solar cells is expected to grow more than 20% between 2017 and 2020, driven by advantages over traditional silicon solar cells.