Toward Textile-based Solar Cells
A fibre-based organic photovoltaic may form the building block of cost-effective, energy-harvesting textiles
A 100km 2 area covered with 10% efficient solar cells can produce enough electricity to satisfy the national requirement. 1 Unfortunately, the total area of cells produced and installed to date is 1,000 times smaller than needed. Despite the high annual growth rate of the photovoltaic (PV) industry, current manufacturing methods face a scalability barrier that makes fulfilling demand unlikely in the next 20 years.
Manufacturing of organic pigment-based solar cells could be expanded, because the dyes are made at the commodity scale. In addition, device-quality organic thin films can be deposited onto virtually any kind of substrate at room temperature 2 without the need to make crystalline bonds between the two. 3 Unfortunately, the relatively low efficiency about 5% of organic solar cells, the need for expensive ingredients like indium tin oxide (ITO), and the substantial installation costs prevent widespread deployment.
