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Aussie Scientist Develops Cheap McGyver Solar Cell
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by Jordan Yerman | August 23, 2008 at 07:45 am
690 views | 21 Recommendations | 4 comments
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I like advances in energy technology. I like pizza. Therefore, Nicole Kuepper (aka "MacGyver") is my new hero. She won Australia's top science award for developing low-cost solar cells using a pizza oven, nail polish, and an inkjet printer. That's just... cool.
23-year-old Nicole Kuepper's invention, named iJET, doesn't require the pricey clean rooms and high-temperature ovens of traditional solar panel manufacturing plants, thus dramatically lowering the cost of solar and paving the road for introducing the technology to third-world countries.
The 23-year-old took out the people's choice award as well as the prize for young leader in environmental science and climate change at tonight's awards in Sydney.
Ms Kuepper developed and patented the iJET solar cell which can be made cheaply at low temperatures using items such as an inkjet printer, nail polish and a pizza oven.
The University of NSW student and lecturer hopes it will lead to green energy in developing nations, providing electricity to the world's two billion poorest people.
Her breakthrough was among an eclectic array of winners at the Eureka Prizes, dubbed the Oscars of Australian science.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 09:36 on August 23rd, 2008
jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.
Hopefully this can lead to something more. I hope so!
But if these means we're going to lose pizza ovens, I'm not so sure.
at 10:18 on August 23rd, 2008
Darn....the sources are light on details. Very cool though !
at 10:57 on August 23rd, 2008
jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. I dunno if this is truly good stuff, considering ion one episode, MacGyer built an entire shopping mall out of spit balls, toilet paper rolls, and toothpicks.
at 15:14 on August 23rd, 2008
jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. "inkjet solar cells"
Old dreams inkjet solar cells development
Konarka (which has also developed and is commercializing Power Plastic, a material that converts light to energy) says the demonstration confirms that organic solar cells can be processed with printing technologies with little or no loss compared to “clean room” semiconductor technologies such as spin coating - a process used to apply uniform thin film solar cells to flat base materials. The inkjet technology also had the advantage of being compatible with various base materials and does not require additional patterning.
While the demonstration was the "first-known" according to the Konarka's release, the attractive notion of printable solar cells is not entirely new. Last year researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology announced the development of an inexpensive solar cell, using a carbon nanotubes complex that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets, and could one day lead to the creation of solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers.
http://www.gizmag.com/solar-cells-created-with-inkjet-technology/9094/