Inventor: Dr. Leonard Ng Wei Tat, Electrical Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Alex Smeets
The inventor has helped develop roll-to-roll printed perovskite solar cells in an international research project using the inventor’s patented graphene technology. Current solar cell technology is nascent, achieving poor efficiencies (∼21%), have rigid form factors and face severe recycling issues at the end of its life after 10-15 years of use.
The new solar cell technology provides solutions for all of these issues and allows for the disruption of solar energy in many ways. First, it reduces the production costs to a fraction of a cent per solar cell. It also provides a solution to the problem of the environmentally unfriendly nature of solar energy. Lastly, it allows us to make use of more surfaces for solar power generation as opposed to needing large fixed panels. The images show examples of how printed solar cells allow us to achieve form factors that are impossible to achieve with current solar cell technologies.
Figure 1(a) Tent with printed solar roof (b) Printed solar cells in shape of sails (c) Foldable solar panels for disaster relief
The challenge for the i-Team is to investigate a wide range of possible uses for these solar cells, considering both commercial and practical viability, and in particular looking for possible collaborators and stakeholders who would be interested in developing applications for these printed solar cells.