Honey, Could You Go Spray on the Solar Panels?

A huge source of energy happens to be sitting almost 100 million miles away from us. You might have seen it. Big orange ball. Suspiciously absent at night. The question is how to use the sun's energy in a cost-effective manner. If researchers at the University of Texas are right, we could have a possible solution by 2014.

Headed by Brian Korgel in the school's chemical engineering department, the research group has been working on a technology that would allow solar panels to be sprayed onto the sides of buildings or rooftops. According to this GreenBiz.com article, they have "developed a method to create photovoltaic panels at one-tenth the cost of existing technologies using nanoparticle 'inks' to generate electricity from the sun."

They've been working on the technology for the past two years, and in 2008, published a paper about it in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. What's lacking right now is the proper efficiency levels. Current solar panels are at 25 percent efficiency, while the spray-on version is at just 1 percent. According to Korgel, "If we get to 10 percent, then there's a real potential for commercialization. If it works, I think you could see it being used in three to five years."

According to a Fast Company blog, Korgel already has a company (Innovalight) that produces silicon-based ink, but nanoparticle ink is cheaper to produce. In fact, he thinks it's so cheap that he "imagines it won't be long until the semi-transparent ink can be used to create windows that also act as solar cells."

Makes you wonder about the possibility of spray-on solar tans, doesn't it? Or maybe that's just me.

Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres, via Wikimedia Commons