Discovery boosts solar panel efficiency
Victoria's RMIT University has led an international consortium of universities and the CSIRO in a research breakthrough that improves a solar panel's efficiency by at least 30%.
Researchers used dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs) instead of traditional silicon. The dye absorbs light energy and produces a current that is transferred into a metal oxide, niobia. Niobia is an inexpensive, chemically stable and environmentally friendly material.
The work was conducted by RMIT PhD student Jian Zhen Ou and supervised by Associate Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The four other universities involved in the project were the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA); the University of New South Wales (UNSW); and the Korean Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology.
Mr Ou has received multiple awards during his PhD program including the 2011 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Student Abroad.
Click here to read more on the RMIT site.
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