EVERY WINDOW A SOLAR COLLECTOR: Researchers at Michigan State University have developed clear plastic solar collectors that can be placed on windows without obstructing the view. The solar-collecting windows won’t appear tinted or cloudy to the human eye. Instead, the material is embedded with tiny fluorescent organic salt molecules, which have been engineered to absorb only parts of the light spectrum that people can’t see, such as ultraviolet and near-infrared light. We harvest particular components on the invisible solar spectrum and glow at another wavelength in the infrared. That infrared “glow” is then picked up by strips of photovoltaic cells (essentially tiny solar panels) at the edge of the material and turned into electricity. From there, the wired-up windows could shunt the harvested energy to local batteries or back into the electrical grid.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 19:42:35 +0000