Nanotechnology used to make Solar Energy 25% more efficient

        Sol Voltaics has announced recently that by using nanotechnology, it is helping build solar cell modules to be 25% more efficient than the solar cells marketed in society today. If the company is able to deliver SolInk as how it is perceived in advertisements, then this could mean it would help make it excessively cheaper to introduce solar cells to a more broader set of customers.
        This nanotechnology is said to have the capacity to make solar power in residential areas and business environments more affordable, which can be necessary to increase adoption of solar energy and to help compete at the same cost of electricity produced from fossil fuel plants. This argument alone has helped Sol Voltaics raise $11 million in funding from public and private Scandinavian investors.
         CEO of Sol Voltaics, Dave Epstein, has claims that with nanotechnology, "we can increase the efficiency of energy capture, conversion and storage. There's no smoke and mirrors here." With two advances, it is made possible. The team, led by founder Lars Samuelson (a Lund University professor), created a technology known as Aerotaxy, which makes it cheaper to create nanomaterials. With this, they are able to create gallium arsenide nanowires that can serve as solar collectors and that they can integrate directly into solar wafers, known commonly as solar cells.
          As a material, gallium arsenide has been used in solar for years because of its high reliability and high efficiency at converting light into electricity. However, gallium arsenide is expensive to manufacture. SolInk dramatically reduces the cost by minimizing the amount of materials being used. In addition to SolInk's benefits, rivals such as Innovalight (bought by DuPont) can boost a solar panel's efficiency from 15% to almost 16.1% while SolInk is claimed to build the efficiency from 15% to almost 19% or from 20% to 25%. The theoretical limit in converting sunlight to electricity is approximately 27% to 29%.
         With Aerotaxy, it helps build nanomaterials by mixing vapors in the air in just a second. The active materials, then, bond to form larger, uniform structures while in motion. Nanowires are literally able to grow in the air. Also, with Aerotaxy, it helps generate tens of billions of nanowires per second on a continuous basis. "It's like cranking out nanowires with a popcorn popper instead of a craftsman. That's the makings of an affordable and scalable technology for mass production," said Epstein.
          According to Greentech Media, demand for solar is growing globally as we know it, with the total number of gigawatts expected at 29.8 in 2012 to 50.8 gigawatts in 2016. Epstein figures that solar is here to stay, since the sun is the only resource that will surely outlast fossil fuels, wind, and other clean energy sources in the run. "In spite of what you might hear, solar is a healthy market," said Epstein.

CEO of Sol Voltaics, Dave Epstein