Materials Engineering Of Photovoltaic Cells

During the past couple of centuries, humans were able to accomplish more things than the entirety of human existence. Mankind was able to prolong life, cure deadly diseases, and more. One of the greatest achievements was converting fossil fuels into energy. People are able to take the fossilized remains and turn them into the everyday fuel everyone in the world uses. However, the energy humans have been using is not clean. The more people use fossil fuels, the more the planet dies. Fortunately, scientists and engineers were able to come up with ways to renew energy. They created new technologies that are capable of harvesting the sun’s rays, water currents, and wind power. Even though renewable energy sources like this have been discovered, people still neglect to convert to them and continue to use fossil fuels.

Alternative or clean energy is the way of the future. Every day we wait to implementing changes in the way we generate energy, is a lost opportunity to prevent further damage to the environment. As Kevin Begos (2016) points out in his article “The Solar Energy Controversies” by implementing solar technologies we can help the environment by reduce our dependency on fossil fuels (p. 387).

In the past hundred years we have been relying on fossil fuel as the major sources of energy, until now people are starting to see what harms fossil fuel does to our environment, and people are staring to see that we are running out of this sources, but likely with the advancement of technology scientist have been able to find something that will replace fossil fuel, and help clean our environment. This replacement are Alternative energy sources. These sources can be described as energy that will be less harmful to the environment as well as humans, cheap, and comes from sources that we won't run out of. One of the most popular source of alternative energy is solar energy. Solar power is the energy

For many years we depend on fossil fuels to get the energy and power we need to survive. Without it, it would lead to widespread panic due to the reliance on electricity to communicate with others, stay cool or warm, or even to turn on our lights. However, there has been the start of new energy sources that could not only help the environment but can also be renewed. The top two forms of such a discovery have been the emergence of solar and wind energy. Although both solar and wind energy are potential ways to reduce the number of fossil fuels used, there are major differences in their production, cost, environmental concerns, and availability which can make one superior to the other (Clean Energy Partners 2011).

Solar cells operate by the photoelectric effect, in which incoming sunlight excites electrons within a semiconducting material like silicon to higher energy level, leading to the movement of free electrons, which eventually pass into an external circuit to maintain a flow of electricity (www.larouchepac.com).

For many years humans have been relying on fossil fuels for most sources of energy. Fossil fuels are an energy source that are formed from ancient plants and organisms approximately three-hundred million years ago. Three types of fossil fuel products exist that fuel basically everything humans use on a daily basis whether its electricity or fuel for a car and those are coal, oil, and natural gas. However, the process of turning fossil fuels into these three types of fuels produces carbon dioxide which has a negative effect on the environment, and fossil fuels are unreliable because they are a non-renewable resource. By switching to a more reliable and economy friendly source of energy such as solar and wind power the environment will be protected from further damage.

Fossil fuels have been the world’s main energy source since they were discovered, however, they carry harmful side effects such as pollution and climate change. Forms of alternative energy such as solar, wind, and nuclear power are possible replacements of fossil fuel energy. Controversy surrounds both fossil fuels and alternative forms of energy due to each energy form having consequences. Some believe that alternative energy brings just as many disadvantages as fossil fuels, while others argue that alternative energy is better for the environment and its population.

The primary source of energy in the United States is fossil fuels – for heating, power, and electricity generation – but we have a limited supply [1]. In addition to limited quantity, the burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming as well as pollutants that cause asthma, acid rain, smog, and more [1]. Alternate sources of energy generation have been studied – among them hydro, tidal, wind, biomass, geothermal, and of course solar energy – to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, to have “clean” energy sources, and because they are all unlimited resources [1].

With limited fossil fuel supply in the world and the growing problem of pollution, humans have to find environmentally friendly and renewable sources of energy. Alternative energy is any source of energy that is an alternative to using fossil fuels. Energy is an enormous factor in the production of wealth and is very important in economic development. “However, energy is defined as the maximum obtainable potential of work of an energy or energy flow in relation to the reference environment” (Midilli). With the population increasing and expected to double by the end of the 21st century, providing clean and affordable energy is a must. With the price of fossil fuels only to increase over the upcoming years, using alternative energy will

In 1954, Bell Laboratories have developed the first solar cell and the energy efficiency was 6% back then (Goetzberger et al. 2002). The figure has been raised to over 10% within 18 months (Green. 2009). For a long period of time, solar energy has mainly been applied into the power supply of space vehicles (Goetzberger et al. 2002). On account of the substantial development in the performance of silicon cells, the efficiency of solar energy conversion has reached 25% (Green. 2009). The growth over time of solar efficiency is delineated in Figure 1:

Solar energy is widely believed to be the most promising renewable energy source to fulfill the ever-increasing energy demand from human society now and into the future. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been explored as a potentially low-cost alternative to silicon solar cell technology due to their lower fabrication costs compared to crystalline semiconductor photovoltaics. However, the optimized efficiency for DSSCs has not been achieved yet, and the chemical stability between dye and semiconductor has also not been addressed completely. In this research, we applied the following four main strategies to prepare photoanodes used in DSSCs with the aim of improving stability and efficiency: 1) utilizing surface chemistry to modify the porous semiconductor films, 2) linking covalently [Di-tetrabutylammoniumcis-bis (isothiocyanato) bis (2, 2’-bipyridyl-4, 4’dicarboxy-lato) ruthenium (II), N719] dye on the surface of semiconductor films, and study the charge injection dynamics by ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy, 3) doping the semiconductor films with micro-sized neodymium oxide (Nd2O3) particles, and (4) incorporating metal nanoparticles through molecular linkers to the semiconductor films. The objectives of this work are to address the limitations of chemical stability existing between TiO2/N719 dye systems, to explore the charge dynamics in TiO2/N719 system for a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of DSSCs, and to prepare high efficiency

The term ‘photo’ means light and ‘voltaic mean electricity. A photovoltaic (PV) cell is also known as solar cell. Even though, photovoltaic effect was observed in 1839 by the French scientist Edmund Becquerel, it was not fully comprehensible until the development of quantum theory of light and solid state physics in early to middle 1900s. Since its first commercial use in powering orbital satellites of the US space programs in the 1950s. While most PV cells in use today are silicon-based, cells made of other semiconductor materials are expected to surpass silicon PV cells in performance and cost and become viable competitors in the PV marketplace

For years man has relied on energy in order to be successful in life. The industrial revolution relied on coal for the new inventions brought into the world. Life as has never been the same since then. However since that time, there has been little done to improve on energy efficiency and humans still primarily rely on fossil fuels for energy. For over a hundred years the Earth has become more polluted and dirtier than ever before. Now, with new, innovative technology there is an opportunity to change that and to rely on renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The main source of energy for the world should be alternative energy instead of energy from fossil fuels.

The performance of the organic solar cell highly depends on the interfaces between the various