GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, GEORGIA, USA; PURDUE UNIVERSITY, INDIANA, USA. A team of researchers create a new efficient and recyclable organic solar cells made from trees and from other plants. This is the first of its kind that can be truly recycled and can be sustained.

Professor Bernard Kippelen of the Georgia Institute of Technology led the study. Their team also collaborated with Purdue University. Typical organic solar cells are usually fabricated on plastic, glass and others used petroleum substrates. The entire team focused on the importance of solar cells that must be recyclable. This is the only way that dependence on fossil fuels will be minimized, if not, eradicated.

It is very important to create a new technology that can produce energy from renewable sources and that are not disposable at the end of its lifecycle. The new organic solar cell can be made from trees or from a substrate that can be derived from other plants. The polymer solar cells are fabricated on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) substrates to create a more sustainable solar cell. This solar cell is swiftly recycled in room-temperature water.

The cellulose nanocrystal substrates onto which the solar cells are made are optically transparent similar to leaves that allows light to pass through before it is imbibed by a very thin layer of an organic semiconductor. Currently, the team is working on reaching a power conversion efficiency of more than 10% to make the organic solar cells as competitive as those fabricated on petroleum-based substrates or glass.