College of Illinois Scientists Show Us Little Known Approaches to Produce More Economical Pv panels

* Another guest article…

While silicon is actually the market normal semiconductor in most electronic devices, which includes the solar cells that pv panels use to convert sun rays into energy, it is not really the most cost-efficient product available. For example, the semiconductor gallium arsenide and associated substance semiconductors give nearly two times the performance as silicon in photo voltaic units, however they are rarely utilized in utility-scale applications mainly because of their excessive manufacturing cost.

U. of Illinois. (http://illinois.edu/) teachers J. Rogers and X. Li researched lower-cost methods to produce thin films of gallium arsenide which also allowed adaptability in the sorts of products they can be integrated into.

If you can lower significantly the price of gallium arsenide and some other compound semiconductors, then you could develop their variety of applications.

Usually, gallium arsenide is transferred in a individual thin layer on a smaller wafer. Either the desired unit is made right on the wafer, or the semiconductor-coated wafer is break up into chips of the preferred dimension. The Illinois team chose to put in several layers of the material on a simple wafer, making a layered, “pancake” stack of gallium arsenide thin films.

If you grow 10 levels in 1 growth, you only have to fill the wafer a single time. If you do this in 10 growths, loading and unloading with temp ramp-up as well as ramp-down get a lot of time. If you consider exactly what is needed for each growth – the equipment, the procedure, the time, the people – the overhead saving this approach offers is a substantial cost decrease.

Next the researchers independently peel off the levels and shift them. To achieve this, the stacks alternate layers of aluminum arsenide with the gallium arsenide. Bathing the stacks in a solution of acid and an oxidizing agent dissolves the layers of aluminum arsenide, freeing the individual small sheets of gallium arsenide. A soft stamp-like system selects up the layers, 1 at a time from the top down, for exchange to one more substrate – glass, plastic or silicon, depending on the application. After that the wafer can be used again for one more growth.

By executing this it’s possible to generate much more material more fast and more price effectively. This process could generate mass amounts of material, as opposed to merely the thin single-layer way in which it is generally grown.

Freeing the material from the wafer additionally opens the opportunity of flexible, thin-film electronics made with gallium arsenide or different high-speed semiconductors. To make devices which could conform but still keep higher performance, that’s considerable.

In a document released on-line May twenty in the magazine Nature (http://www.nature.com/), the group describes its techniques and displays three kinds of devices utilizing gallium arsenide chips made in multilayer stacks: light units, high-speed transistors and photo voltaic cells. The authors additionally offer a comprehensive price comparability.

An additional benefit of the multilayer technique is the release from area constraints, particularly important for solar cells. As the layers are removed from the stack, they could be laid out side-by-side on an additional substrate in order to generate a much greater surface area, whereas the standard single-layer procedure limits area to the dimension of the wafer.

For photovoltaics, you want large area coverage to get as much sunshine as possible. In an extreme situation we may develop sufficient layers to have ten times the area of the conventional.

After that, the team programs to explore more possible product applications and other semiconductor resources that could adapt to multilayer growth.

About the Author – Shannon Combs gives advice for the residential solar power grants weblog, her personal hobby weblog focused on recommendations to assist home owners to conserve energy with solar power.

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5 Gadgets To Make Your Home More Energy Efficient

Global warming is regularly in the news, along with efforts to identify ways to reduce peoples’ carbon footprint. Taking public transport and going on holidays in the UK are two of the well-known ways to reduce carbon emissions but are often unpopular given the significant lifestyle changes that they sometimes require.

However, there are simple and easy ways to reduce your carbon footprint. These five gadgets will all help to make your home more energy-efficient, so that you can relax in the knowledge that you are going some way towards doing your bit to make the world a greener place.

1) Eco Button – do you switch your computer on only to then leave it running throughout the day, turning it off at the end of the day? When your computer is left idle it’s consuming a surprising amount of energy. This is where the Eco Button comes in. Plug it into your computer’s USB port every time you leave it, then on your return you can see just how much energy has been saved and, interestingly, how much money it’s saved you.

2) Eco Kettle – we’re always being told to only boil the amount of water that we intend to use. Wouldn’t it be easier if we just had a device to do this for us? Well, now we do – it’s called the Eco Kettle. Simply fill the kettle to the top, select how many cups of water you need, and the Eco Kettle only boils exactly that amount of water.

3) Radiator Auto Vent Device – air in radiators reduces their efficiency by as much as 60%. Therefore the Radiator Auto Vent gadget can be quite an energy-saver. Attach it to your radiators and it automatically de-aerates your radiators, saving you money and the hassle of doing it yourself.

4) Eco Balls – instead of using washing powder try Eco Balls in your washing machine. You can buy Eco Balls that can be used in up to 1,000 washes and can reduce your washing bills by over 80%. They also allow you to save energy by eliminating the need to carry out a rinse cycle.

5) Battery Wizard – we all have old batteries around the home, batteries that used to work but have long since run out of power. Now a battery re-charging device is on the market to get extra power out of your batteries. The Battery Wizard can increase the life of your battery by up to 10 times.  read more here

This is a guest post by Charles Cridland from Animal Adoptions, a site that covers many of the world’s most endangered animals, including polar bears and orangutans.

The Old-fashioned Green Cleaning Remedies

Not too long ago, there were no options for “green” commercial cleaners. While it’s true the available cleaners did a great job cleaning our homes, they contained questionable chemicals that got absorbed in our skin, inhaled in our lungs, and flushed into our waterways. In short, they contained poison chemicals.

Nowadays there are many green cleaners available. Just check the store shelves and you will find many new products that are much better for the environment. If the product is green, it will shout green at you. They’ll proudly list their ingredients and some will even tell you what each ingredient does. Go with plant-based over petroleum-based as it is usually better. If you are not sure about an ingredient and if it sounds menacing to you then go online and get the facts.

Now that you have made the commitment to go greener, consider your cleaning materials as well. Paper towels should be chlorine-free and made from recycled paper. Better yet, use soft, absorbent cloth diapers as they do an excellent job cleaning, and last a long time. New on the market are microfiber kitchen cloths. They are multi-purpose and are great for spills as they are super absorbent. In the spirit of reduce, reuse, and recycle, use old tshirts for general cleaning jobs.

Way back in the good old day, cleaners consisted of regular household items like baking soda, vinegar, and elbow grease. These “old-fashioned” remedies work just as well today as they did back then. These products are another non-toxic option for cleaning that you might consider revisiting.

Baking Soda

clean surfaces
remove odors
clean silver
remove scuff marks
remove grease
clean hairbrushes and combs
remove burnt food from the grill
remove mildew
clean outdoor furniture

Vinegar

clean windows
clean silver, pewter, brass or copper
clean spills
clean no-wax floors
clean wood paneling
spray shower stalls to prevent mildew
keep ants away
remove odors
remove soap residue

Some commercial green cleaners are more expensive and some are not, but expense may certainly weigh in, along with health and environment issues, when considering your choice of cleaner. If you can, choose the products that are better for you and the environment AND that do the job just as well.

Alternative Energy Potential In Ireland

Irish people are presently following energy independence and encourage development of their vigorous economic system through the execution of research and development into alternative energy resources.

The Ireland has been utilized Hydroelectric power very effectively since the thirties, but more of it needs to be build. Ireland also needs to harness the wave power of the Atlantic Ocean, which on its west coast is a potential energy source.

In the meantime, Ireland is for the most part focused on reaching the point where it can produce 15% of the nation’s electricity through wind farms, which the government has set as a national objective to be reached by 2010. But universities, research institutes, and government personnel in Ireland have been saying that the development of ocean wave energy technology would be a true driving force for the nation’s economy and one which would greatly help to make Ireland energy independent.

A test site for developing wave ocean energy has been set up in Ireland, less than two miles off the coast of An Spideal in County Galway Bay. This experimental ocean wave harnessing location is known as “Wavebob”. The most dynamic waves in the world are located off the West coast of Ireland, says Ireland’s Marine Institute CEO Dr. Peter Heffernan. The technology to harness the power of the ocean is only just emerging and Ireland has the chance to become a market leader in this sector.

Wave energy is a promising new renewable energy resource which could one day make a significant contribution to Ireland’s electricity generation power thereby further reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.

Ireland has the potential to become an energy exporter, with the energy potential rests in Ireland’s significant wind, ocean wave, and biomass-producing alternative energy potentialities. Ireland could become a supplier of electrical energy to continental European Community.

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