Sophia Walker of the solar charger blog approached me and asked me if I could raise awareness on graphene photovoltaics, a new technology which might help us all to bridge the planet from the petroleum era to the new energies era.

I am doing this with much pleasure, since it's not only a good cause but a very interesting topic.

University of southern California researchers reveal us a more successful use of graphene photovoltaics.

Is it possible to imagine people powering their cellphone or music/video device while jogging on a sunny day?

A University of Southern California team has produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that may have great potential for a new breed of solar cells.

In a paper recently published by the journal ACS Nano, researchers stated that organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells have been proposed as an approach to achieve cost effective energy due to their ease of manufacture, light-weight, and compatibility with flexible substrates.

This work shows that graphene, an extremely conductive and highly transparent kind of carbon consisting of atoms-thick sheets of carbon atoms, has high potential to fill this role.

While graphene's existence has been known for decades, it has only been studied extensively since 2004 because of the impossibility of manufacturing it in high quality and in quantity.

The University of southern California team has produced graphene/polymer sheets ranging in sizes up to 150 square centimeters that in turn may be used to create dense arrays of flexible organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells.

These organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices convert solar radiation to electricity, but not as efficiently as silicon cells.

The energy provided by sunlight on a sunny day is around 1,000 watts per meter square, for every 1,000 watts of sunlight that hits a square meter part of the standard silicon solar cell, 14 watts of electricity will be generated, Organic solar cells are less efficient; their conversion rate for that same 1,000 watts of sunlight in the graphene-based solar cell could be only 1.3 watts.

But what graphene organic photovoltaic (OPV) lack in efficiency, can potentially be compensated by its lower price and, greater physical flexibility.

Researchers think it may eventually be possible to cover with inexpensive solar cell layers extensive areas like newspapers, magazines or power generating clothing.

In the meanwhile Prof. Ruoff and his colleagues of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin, are studying the basic science in the introduction of graphene-based ultracapacitors for use in electronics and various fields.

Prof. Ruoff says batteries are relatively slow, they can store energy but require some time to charge up, and then they distribute energy slowly, in time.

Ultracapacitors can be charged very quickly, within seconds, and discharge very quickly, but, today, they can’t store very much electrical energy.

The development of stable and cheaper ultracapacitors is seen as a key step in using wind or solar-generated power, especially if researchers can find approaches to enable capacitors to store energy longer, which is not yet possible.

Even with their current storage capacity, the graphene devices could provide quick energy when needed in certain situations on the green way.

Graphene photovoltaics could be used, for instance, to absorb the heat generated in braking a car or train, and store it for a short time, and use it for the electrical needs of the vehicle (i.e. starting the car or acceleration)

About the Author - Sophia H. Walker writes for the solar charger blog, her personal hobby web site centered on tips to help individuals save electricity using solar power for small devices.

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