37
Transparent solar cell technology could allow smartphones and cars to self-charge
(www.techspot.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
37 points (89.4% liked)
Technology
1221 readers
1 users here now
Which posts fit here?
Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.
Rules
1. English only
Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original link
Post URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communication
All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity
Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks
Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents
Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply
If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.
Companion communities
[email protected]
[email protected]
Icon attribution | Banner attribution
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Did a simple calculation to see how long it would take for such a tiny solar panel they made to charge the phone. And that's not using the phone (turned off) and without concern for overheating the phone by putting it in direct sunlight. The efficiency of regular solar panels are bad, this transparent thing is cool but way worse than regular panels. In an optimized scenario such as in the paper (not realistic) it would take 60 hours for a full charge. Since there aren't usually 24 hours of sunlight (let alone full direct sunlight) it would probably take well over a week to charge.
Self charging phones using solar isn't a thing that's practically possible.
Even at high efficiency (which isn't possible) it isn't practical since phones don't do well in the sun and are usually stored in pockets, bags and often have covers over them. Plus they are mostly used inside where there isn't sun, or outside where most of the times there also isn't a lot of sun.
Just put a solar panel on the roof, that's the best place for solar panels.
Great points.
Regular solar cells with better efficiency are already are thing, even in a compact travel format or as a novelty part of some electric cars. Those are cheap to produce, but still aren't practical at all, unless we're talking about something like a 2m² solar panel to charge a phone in a somewhat reasonable time on a very sunny day in an off-grid situation.
Using transparent solar cells additionally to regular ones in buildings instead of windows is pretty much the only reasonable application I can think of right now, but with a visible transmittance of 20% that's kinda farfetched as well.