How do printed solar panels work?

Printed solar panels are thin, lightweight devices that use solar ink to capture daylight and turn it into electricity. Conventional commercial printers can press this ink, which contains all the semiconductor material and electrodes needed to generate solar energy, onto a large and disparate number of surfaces.

What are Inkjet solar cells?

Inkjet solar cells are solar cells manufactured by low-cost, high tech methods that use an inkjet printer to lay down the semiconductor material and the electrodes onto a solar cell substrate .

What is a printed solar panel?

Printed solar panels are flexible, lightweight, and more recyclable than standard silicon panels, since they’re made almost entirely of plastic. They can also – in theory – be manufactured quickly and cheaply, while their adaptable form means you should be able to put a printed solar panel on just about any surface.

Can a commercial printer use solar ink?

Conventional commercial printers can press this ink, which contains all the semiconductor material and electrodes needed to generate solar energy, onto a large and disparate number of surfaces. Companies are currently limited by the heavy, inflexible nature of silicon, which is widely used in solar panels – but soon, that may not be the case.

How are printed solar panels made?

Printed solar panels are made by printing solar ink onto plastic surfaces – like a more large-scale version of you printing a document at home. This process can be carried out by standard industrial printers, so solar manufacturers won’t have to buy new, expensive technology if they want to move into this space.

Can inkjet printers print tiny solar panels?

Inkjet printing is commonplace, but a key research challenge was to develop a functional ink to be able to print these tiny solar panels. Credit: © 2020 KAUST; Anastasia Serin After optimizing the ink composition for each layer of the device, the solar cells were printed onto glass to test their performance.