{"id":2278,"date":"2011-04-27T08:52:05","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T01:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nano2.toolsmkt.com\/?p=2278"},"modified":"2011-04-27T08:52:05","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T01:52:05","slug":"solar-power-goes-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nanotec.or.th\/en\/solar-power-goes-viral\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Power Goes Viral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States, have found that by using the services of tiny viruses, they can make significant improvements to the power-conversion efficiency of solar cells.\u00c2\u00a0 <!--more-->The research is based on findings that carbon nanotubes can enhance the efficiency of electron collection from the solar cell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s surface, although previous attempts to use the nanotubes have come up against two problems: production of carbon nanotubes results in a mix of two types of nanotubes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one that improves the performance of solar cells and one that has the opposite affect; and, nanotubes tend to clump, which reduces their effectiveness.\u00c2\u00a0 The viruses can be used to control the arrangement of the nanotubes on the surface, keeping the tubes separate so they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t short out circuits, and keeping them apart so they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t clump.\u00c2\u00a0 The team found that adding the virus-built structures enhanced the power conversion efficiency to 10.6 percent from 8 percent.\u00c2\u00a0 Angela Belcher, the W. M. Keck Professor of Energy, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A little biology goes a long way,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d adding that the team believes with further work, they can ramp up the efficiency even further.\u00c2\u00a0 Belcher also said that because the process adds just one simple step to a standard solar cell manufacturing process, it would be easy to adapt existing production facilities, enabling fairly rapid implementation.\u00c2\u00a0 The team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s findings were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States, have found that by using the services of tiny viruses, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology-update"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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