I Would Like the Solar Paint, Please

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Solar paint, it’s the new red.  You know how it is. Your grow bored of that orange, yellow, and brown color scheme. Yep, it’s time paint your house. The problem is that you don’t want to be only stylish. No, you have dreams of saving the world and saving money too. You want to kick it to the power companies. You want solar paint.  Until now, you were relegated to unsightly solar panels on your house. That just won’t do. Enter in Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT’s Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. He seems to have created just what we need.

“Developing organic solar cells from polymers, however, is a cheap and potentially simpler alternative,” said Mitra. “We foresee a great deal of interest in our work because solar cells can be inexpensively printed or simply painted on exterior building walls and/or roof tops. Imagine some day driving in your hybrid car with a solar panel painted on the roof, which is producing electricity to drive the engine. The opportunities are endless.”

Mitra make use of nanotubes and tiny carbon Buckyballs (known as fullerenes) to form snake-like structures. Don’t ask about that name. But this stuff is the soup for solar paint.  Anyway, these “Buckyballs” trap electrons and the nanotubes act like wires, which makes the current flow. “Using this unique combination in an organic solar cell recipe can enhance the efficiency of future painted-on solar cells,” said Mitra. “Someday, I hope to see this process become an inexpensive energy alternative for households around the world.” So now your red and green wall won’t only look good – it will be powering little Johnnie’s PS3 too.

Source: NJIT press release

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