- – One-coat paint generates electricity with tiny semiconducting crystals
- – Paint is less efficient than panels, but will improve
- – So far, paint has to be stored in the dark
Rob Waugh
Mail Online
December 22, 2011
Researchers have developed a ‘solar paint’ that could one day replace solar cells and make renewable energy much cheaper.
The paste, which is made of hi-tech ‘quantum dots’, can be put onto any surface and produce electricity from the sun.
The dots are semiconducting crystals which are between two and 10 nanometres in diameter and are mixed into dye that looks like normal paint.
In tests they were just one per cent efficient, less than one 10th the efficiency of a standard solar cell, but the researchers are convinced that rate will improve in the future.
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