This Material Can Turn Sunlight, Heat, and Kinetic Energy Into Electricity
Mineral that transformed solar technology can also extract energy from other sources at the same time
There are many forms of energy all around us: sunlight, the heat in your room, and even your our movements. These sources of energy are abundant, but are normally all lost to our surroundings and wasted. With perovskite however, that isn’t the case.
Although it was initially discovered in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1839, its special characteristics weren’t identified until 2009. With the ability to absorb sunlight, the mineral has promising applications in solar cell development. Its high absorption coefficient enables ultra-thin films of around 500 nm to absorb the complete visible spectrum. And in addition to being highly efficient, thin, lightweight, and flexible solar modules, the raw material and possible fabrication methods are low in cost.
Found in the Earth’s mantle, perovskite is a family of calcium titanium oxide minerals composed of calcium titanate (CaTiO3). When used as the light-harvesting active layer of solar cells, it has shown to be more efficient than traditional silicon solar cells. This efficiency still increases every year — from 3.8% in 2009 to 22.1% in early 2016. Furthermore, traditional solar cell manufacturing entails an expensive, multi-step process, which requires extremely high temperatures (>1000 °C) and special clean room facilities. The perovskite material, however, can be manufactured in traditional lab environments. All of these benefits of using peroskite as an energy generator make them the fastest-advancing solar technology to date.
But what are the applications of pervoskite apart from solar cells? Well, a specific type of the mineral has recently been found to have amazing characteristics: it can extract energy from multiple sources all at the same time. In a study published in journal Applied Physics Letters in February 2017, researchers state that a type of perovskite called KBNNO converts solar, heat and kinetic energy into electricity all at once. On top of all of that, the material can do so at room temperature, which makes it all the more practical. The reason is that, like other perovskite crystals, KBNNO is ferroelectric. This means that the material is organized into electric dipoles, or tiny compass-like needles. A physical change would cause the dipoles to misalign and hence create a current.
Although KBNNO isn’t powerful enough to power your home, it has several applications in the industry. This includes providing energy for the devices that you use everyday without the need to constantly plug them in. Researcher Yang Bai and his team are looking to create a multi-energy-harvesting device with this mineral soon.
“This will push the development of the Internet of Things and smart cities, where power-consuming sensors and devices can be energy sustainable,” Bai said in a press release. This could mean that one day, you won’t have to plug in your smartphone anymore. Batteries for small devices may even become obsolete.
