New solar cell technology designed to use ambient light indoors to charge devices such as remote controls has been announced.
The technology will be unveiled at CES 2024 by California-based Ambient Photonics, and the startup will also partner with Google to incorporate the technology into new consumer products, although details have not yet been disclosed. It is scheduled to launch at some point in 2024, a company representative announced at the show.
The company is also working on a computer mouse that runs on solar energy. According to the company, none of these devices, including unknown Google products, require disposable batteries or need to be consciously charged.
The new cell technology is bifacial. This means it can collect and generate energy from both sides, producing enough energy to power your home appliances. Previous cells were single-sided, providing 100% efficiency on the front side plus 50% additional energy on the back side.
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inspired by photosynthesis — The process by which plants convert sunlight into energy — These solar cells contain photosensitive dye molecules that turn photons, tiny particles of electromagnetic radiation, into electrons, negative subatomic particles.
This creates a difference in charge and allows electricity to flow. These work in the same way that chlorophyll, which makes plants green, produces electricity from photons in photosynthesis.
“In dye-sensitized solar cells, the amount of power produced is determined by how effectively the photons are absorbed by the dye,” said Joshua Wright, vice president of engineering at Ambient Photonics. he told Live Science via email.
Wright claimed his team had achieved “superior dye chemistry” to produce “unparalleled power density,” and the company released details in a document. Outline how the technology works. Ambient's dyes are based on more than 40 organic sensitizer molecules, the active ingredient in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology, which absorbs light across the visible electromagnetic spectrum, similar to other solar panels. .
Billions of batteries end up in landfills every year, so reducing the need for batteries has the potential to reduce e-waste.
Solar power technology has been around for decades, but generating enough power for devices at low lighting levels has been a thorny problem. Wright explained that previous attempts to create low-light solar cells have fallen short, with traditional solar power innovations such as amorphous silicon cells “not producing enough power in real-world low-light operating conditions.” did.
Ambient claims its technology collects three times more light than comparable solutions.
“Also, the high price tag of high-performance, low-light solar power technologies like gallium arsenide cells makes these technologies only suitable for space satellites and research applications, not consumer electronics. “There is,” he said.
