TED Video. Made of a mix of proteins, spider silks come in thousands of variations; there are over 40,000 species of spiders, with many spiders capable of producing half a dozen types.
Inspiring! When the residents of Saranac Lake, NY were faced with having a Super Wal-Mart put in, some 600 residents came together to open their own department store.
Researchers at Notre Dame have developed a paste of semiconducting nanoparticles called solar paint (or "Sunbelievable") that could lead to easier-to-produce solar cells.
First, they mix t-butanol, water, cadmium sulfide and titanium dioxide
for 30 minutes. Next, they mask off a clear electrode with office tape.
Once the tape is in place, they spread the mixture onto the electode and
then anneal it with a heat gun. Finally, they sandwich an electrolyte
solution between the new electrode and a graphene composite electrode.
And then, it's time for testing under a beam of artificial light.
The best performing cell paint's light-to-electricity efficiency is 1% so far. The
efficiencies of commercial silicon solar cells are usually between 10
and 15%. The paints’ efficiencies, although low, are “quite decent” for a first-generation material. Read more: cen.acs.org
TED Video. Made of a mix of proteins, spider silks come in thousands of variations; there are over 40,000 species of spiders, with many spiders capable of producing half a dozen types.
Inspiring! When the residents of Saranac Lake, NY were faced with having a Super Wal-Mart put in, some 600 residents came together to open their own department store.
