Solar Paint

Energy crisis is a big issue in today’s era. Scientists are trying to find more and more alternate sources of energy. One of them is solar energy. Solar energy is most common and ubiquitous energy source. We get enough energy in 1 hour from sun to fulfill our energy need for one year!!

Currently, people are using solar panels to generate electricity from sunlight. But cost for installation of solar panel is high and its efficiency is near to 10% to 15%.

Researchers at the university of Notre Dame in US has developed a paint which can generate electricity from light when it is spreaded on a conductive surface. Indian origin professor Prashant Kamat is leader of this team. These researchers have called this paint as ‘Sun-believable Solar Paint’.

Power producing nano-sized particle made of titanium dioxide is used in this paint. These nano particles are called quantum dots. The paint is based on nano sized particles of titanium dioxide (quantum dots) coated with cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide. These particles were mixed with water and alcohol to create a smooth paste.

“When the paste was brushed onto a transparent conducting material and exposed to light, it created electricity”: Prashant Kamat.

This paint doesn’t need any special equipment to apply on the surface it simply need a conventional paint brush.

This paint has light to energy conversion efficiency of 1% which is low compared to solar panels. But production cost of this paint is very low which makes it worth.

Researchers believe that small improvement in efficiency can make it commercially successful.