A 12-year-old boy holds the key to solar energy

21.09.08 / TECHNOLOGY / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
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A significant problem with existing solar technology is that it is not terribly efficient at harvesting solar energy and transforming it into electricity.

Solar technology gets improved all the time, but one 12-year-old boy may hold the key to making solar panels that can harness 500 times the light of a traditional solar cell that it is built today. William Yuan is a seventh grade student, part of a project titled “A Highly-Efficient 3-Dimensional Nanotube Solar Cell for Visible and UV Light,” that may change the course of energetic industry and transform solar energy far easier to harness and distribute.

Yuan’s project is based on a special solar cell that can harness visible light as well as the ultraviolet light. Most solar cells that are used today are either photovoltaic, equivalent to the fact that they harness only visible light, or thermal. While visible, the infrared, and ultraviolet light are all heavily scattered or absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, ultraviolet light comes in at shorter wavelengths and with higher energy than both visible and infrared light. Ultraviolet light is able to provide more energy to a collector than the other, longer-wavelength members of the electromagnetic spectrum. The solar cells that Yuan has invented are innovative not only for their collection of UV light, but also because they are designed to stand in a free way in three dimensions (which let them collect more light) and make use of carbon nanotubes, which allow the cell to distribute the energy it collects a dissipating as much as traditional cells do.

The young inventor is looking for someone to invest in building his new solar cell, and likely won’t have a problem finding someone to join the business. Yuan’s new solar cells have already earned him a $25,000 scholarship at the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, to fund his education and research, and a host of other awards in science and engineering. Yuan it is not the only young inventor that makes a difference because more and more young innovators are changing the face of the new technology.