New Solar Panel Design Opens the Door to Next Generation Green Energy Efficiency
In what has been dubbed an amazing discovery, new solar panels designed with ferroelectric materials layered in a lattice structure can produce up to 1000x energy when compared with current designs.
Currently, solar panels are primarily silicon, and their ability to produce energy from the Sun is limited. Researchers from the Martin Luther University have begun testing solar panels made from ferroelectric layers that have produced results. The current layers in use are barium titanate, strontium titanate and calcium titanate which are ferroelectric. Ferroelectric materials have separated sides of positive and negative charges which are used in these new solar panels to generate electricity.
The layered ferroelectric solar panels have the potential to reduce the cost of solar panel manufacturing and can provide more energy using less space. This could be a game changer, as many layers of the ferroelectric materials can be stacked in a tight configuration and materials can be saved. In essence, this innovation may reduce the cost of manufacturing while providing more energy and reducing the space required to produce solar energy. This is a great step towards more adoption of green energy going forward, but more research is required to learn the full capabilities of this material and the optimal configuration of the stacked lattice materials.
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