In a breakthrough development, researchers from China and\nSweden have come up with a new type of organic solar cell that can generate\nelectricity from ambient indoor lighting. This is great news for the world as\nour demand for small, inexpensive sources of renewable energy is bound to\nincrease to feed the millions of products that the internet of things will\nbring online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the internet of things expands, it is expected that we\nwill need to have millions of products online, both in public spaces and in\nhomes. Many of these will be the multitude of sensors to detect and measure\nmoisture, particle concentrations, temperature and other parameters. Therefore,\nthese organic solar cells are a great way to reduce the need for frequent and\nexpensive battery replacements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers describe two variants of an organic solar\ncell in an article in Nature Energy, where one variant has an area of 1 cm2 and\nthe other 4 cm2. The smaller solar cell was exposed to ambient light at an\nintensity of 1000 lux, and the researchers observed that as much as 26.1% of\nthe energy of the light was converted to electricity. The organic solar cell\ndelivered a high voltage of above 1 V for more than 1,000 hours in ambient\nlight that varied between 200 and 1000 lux. The larger solar cell still\nmaintained an energy efficiency of 23%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n