Solar Energy Harvesting Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Solar Energy Harvesting - Term Paper Example The device is essentially composed of a ‘light sponge’ of nanoparticles. The dye-sensitized property means that the titanium has a monolayer of absorbed dye which increases the likelihood of photon capture (Tulloch, 2004). Nanostructured semiconductor films have been identified as suitable for applications in solar cells as their physical and chemical properties make them ideal. These nanostructured films utilize these dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical solars(PES) cells. The large surface area of nanoparticles means that they are capable of harvesting large amounts of solar energy. There is a sensitizer grafted into the titanium. Light induced electrons are injected from the absorbed dye into the nanocrystalites and makes the titanium conductive (Gratzel, 2003). There are so far two concerns which have been identified in the application of these PESs. They are related to the ‘maximum light harvesting of sunlight and the efficient collection of photocarriers at electrons’ (Rodriguez et al., 2007). Both of these issues have attracted a large amount of research interest. This is mostly due to the interest which many governments have shown in recent years in developing ‘green technologies’ for energy generation. Solar panels are an ideal way of harvesting energy in a green way, but for them to be successful on a large scale as a replacement for power stations they must be efficient at harvesting and storing large amounts of solar energy. To address the issues of PES optimization research has focused on a number of issues with the composition of the solar cells. One of the key areas on which manufacturers have focused is in optimizing the chemical composition of titanium. Improvements in technology may allow for a thinner form of titanium to be manufactured which would overall allow for thinner titanium layers to be applied to solar applications. This would result in a reduction in recombination of photoexcited carriers, which would increase PES cell efficiency.