Saskatchewan researchers hope to build better solar cell

Materials chemist Tim Kelly moved to Saskatoon to catch some rays.

Originally from Newfoundland, the young researcher is setting up labs at the University of Saskatchewan with the aim of building a better solar cell.

Rather than designing solar cells made out of silicon - like a typical commercially available solar panel - Kelly is joining researchers who are working to develop devices that capture the sun's energy using organic compounds and polymers.

"(Crystalline silicon) makes great solar cells," he said. "They're very efficient. But making devices out of those materials is extremely energy intensive and therefore, extremely expensive. You need very high purity silicon and it's the refining and purification process that adds a lot of expense to a photovoltaic device."

The problem with existing organic solar cells so far is their underwhelming efficiency.

Lab-built silicon cells are about 25 per cent efficient, whereas researchers around the world have struggled to nudge organic cells up to the 10 per cent efficiency mark.

Kelly, who receives federal funding as a Canada Research Chair in photovoltaics, is interested in using so-called nanomaterials - tiny particles smaller than some viruses - to capture and use more of the light hitting the solar cell.

Kelly plans to use silver and gold particles, which can absorb different wavelengths of light depending on their size. That would allow the solar cell to soak up a wider spectrum of light to convert into usable energy.

Kelly's lab is also working with U of S photochemistry Prof. Ron Steer, who last month garnered a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grant, also for research on solar cells. The groups intend to design cells that convert infrared light - which we feel as heat - into visible light solar cells can absorb and convert into electricity. Half of the energy that comes to Earth from the sun arrives as infrared radiation.

The solar panels Kelly builds will be small experimental ones - just a few square millimetres in size - designed to test how well the technology works.

"I'm not powering my lab on these solar cells," he quips. Scaling them up into functional solar panels will be another engineering project.

When asked if he has an interest in commercializing any successful new solar technology from his lab, Kelly said he'll "have to see how that goes."

It was more than 50 years ago researchers discovered and developed the polymers capable of conducting electricity that are now finding a use in solar cells. It underlines the importance of funding pure science with no immediately known application, he says.

"It's an interesting thought on the need for fundamental science. Sixty years ago, nobody was thinking about these materials as interesting solar cell materials. I mean, they were just doing some interesting science and studying some polymers they thought were neat."