A New Material for Solar Panels Could Make Them Cheaper, More Efficient

[longknife]

Good news. Cut down the initial cost and real savings come faster.

Dec. 11, 2013 — A unique solar panel design made with a new ceramic material points the way to potentially providing sustainable power cheaper, more efficiently, and requiring less manufacturing time. It also reaches a four-decade-old goal of discovering a bulk photovoltaic material that can harness energy from visible and infrared light, not just ultraviolet light.

Read more @ A new material for solar panels could make them cheaper, more efficient

 

[Whereisup]

Good news. Cut down the initial cost and real savings come faster.

Dec. 11, 2013 — A unique solar panel design made with a new ceramic material points the way to potentially providing sustainable power cheaper, more efficiently, and requiring less manufacturing time. It also reaches a four-decade-old goal of discovering a bulk photovoltaic material that can harness energy from visible and infrared light, not just ultraviolet light.

Read more @ A new material for solar panels could make them cheaper, more efficient

I hope it turns out that way. It is true however that researchers frequently overhype their results in order to obtain new research funding, because research funding is so inadequate that there is a lot of competition for it.

One possible problem is that neither barium nor niobium is a cheap and common material. If we wanted to replace all fossil fuel burning with this material, that would use a lot of barium and niobium, which would drive the prices up even if there were enough of those materials to do that much.

However, further research to understand this material better might lead to discovery of another material which would do as well but be less expensive.

If I were giving research grants, I would give grants for further work on this.

Jim

 

[Old Rocks]

Good news. Cut down the initial cost and real savings come faster.

Dec. 11, 2013 — A unique solar panel design made with a new ceramic material points the way to potentially providing sustainable power cheaper, more efficiently, and requiring less manufacturing time. It also reaches a four-decade-old goal of discovering a bulk photovoltaic material that can harness energy from visible and infrared light, not just ultraviolet light.

Read more @ A new material for solar panels could make them cheaper, more efficient

I hope it turns out that way. It is true however that researchers frequently overhype their results in order to obtain new research funding, because research funding is so inadequate that there is a lot of competition for it.

One possible problem is that neither barium nor niobium is a cheap and common material. If we wanted to replace all fossil fuel burning with this material, that would use a lot of barium and niobium, which would drive the prices up even if there were enough of those materials to do that much.

However, further research to understand this material better might lead to discovery of another material which would do as well but be less expensive.

If I were giving research grants, I would give grants for further work on this.

Jim

Barium, Chemical Element - Overview, Discovery and naming, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Occurrence in nature, Isotopes

Barium is the fourteenth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Its abundance is estimated to be about 0.05 percent.

The most common sources of barium are barite and witherite. Witherite is an ore containing barium carbonate (BaCO 3 ). The world's major sources of barium ores are China, India, Morocco, the United States, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. Most of the barium



Read more: Barium, Chemical Element - Overview, Discovery and naming, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Occurrence in nature, Isotopes

 

[Old Rocks]

For niobium, you are correct. Not one of the common elements;

It's Elemental - The Element Niobium

 

[Whereisup]

Good news. Cut down the initial cost and real savings come faster.



Read more @ A new material for solar panels could make them cheaper, more efficient

Jim

Barium, Chemical Element - Overview, Discovery and naming, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Occurrence in nature, Isotopes

Barium is the fourteenth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Its abundance is estimated to be about 0.05 percent.

The most common sources of barium are barite and witherite. Witherite is an ore containing barium carbonate (BaCO 3 ). The world's major sources of barium ores are China, India, Morocco, the United States, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. Most of the barium



Read more: Barium, Chemical Element - Overview, Discovery and naming, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Occurrence in nature, Isotopes

That is very interesting. I tend to use quick logic a lot, and in this case the quick logic was wrong.

My logical thought was that barium is so heavy that it couldn't be as common as your reference says it is. My thinking was that since atoms heavier than iron must be built up neutron/proton by neutron/proton deep in a supernova star, the heavier an element, ON AVERAGE, the rarer it should be. There would be fluctuations going up the scale, but it is a surprise that Barium could be that common. So something unusual is going on. My GUESS would have been that the 18 most abundant elements in the crust would be: hydrogen, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, potassium,calcium, sulphur, chlorine, potassium, phosphorus, iron, copper. Then beyond copper, there are 24 elements (excluding noble gasses) lighter than barium, plus 9 elements lighter than copper which I left out of my guess list.

So that makes the abundance of barium into a major question. Do you happen to know why barium is so much more abundant than it should be?

Logical guessing is a technique that sometimes leads to new discoveries, and at other times yields something that turns out not to be true.

Jim