Yes, I’m still alive, and still committed to greening our lifestyle. I’m just caught up momentarily (or maybe longer than momentarily) in the comings and goings of everyday life.  All four of us are back to school on one side of the desk or the other, plus assorted meetings and responsibilities and life gets hectic.  For instance, this week on Monday was a school board meeting, on Tuesday was an Education Foundation meeting, on Wednesday was a party (more on that later), on Thursday was a cross-country meet (an hour away), tonight there was gloriously NOTHING, but tomorrow morning is another cross-country meet and a party in the evening.  Sunday is house cleaning from top to bottom and the yard too because the appraiser is coming Tuesday to appraise the property for refinancing and then family will be coming for over Labor Day weekend.

On the green front the solar panel project is in the refinancing stage, so at the moment we wait.  The bees are doing their bee stuff, as far as I know, I haven’t had time to check them this week, and am not sure I’ll have time this weekend either – – luckily they don’t really need me to check on them. At school I met with my Environmental Psychology Research Group, we’re planning to look at the environmental attitudes and behaviors of beekeepers (so I will get something scholarly out of this hobby too).

On Wednesday I spend a hunk of change at a home party on what is billed as eco-friendly products by Norwek.  Norwek (short for the Norwegian Experience) features microfiber clothes embedded with silver particles that kill bacteria.  Nancy Lamkin, the consultant, did a marvelous and enthusiastic job.  How is that a group of women, most, of not all of whom have professional careers, can simultaneously “ahhh” when another woman dust mops a floor but with a little flap of mop to the side to get up on the baseboard as she slides by.  Such innovation.  Yep, we’re a bit pathetic.  I’ll be receiving my products in a week or so and will report my impressions.  I’m most anxious to see if the magnet ball will work.  It is suppose to soften the water in your dishwasher or washing machine allowing you to use less soap.  We have trouble with our dishwasher when we use phosphate-less detergent (which is all the time).  Some of the soap powder gets stuck in the glasses or where dishes might touch.  Sometimes the soap leaves a nasty film too.  I’m hoping softer water (ours is as hard as rocks) and less soap will mean less soap powder  and film on the dishes.  There’s a 60 day money back guarantee, so I can always return it if I’m wholly dissatisfied.

Oh, and as for the monarch caterpillars.  Everyday I checked and every day there were 2 fewer caterpillars.  I believe they crawled off to build their chrysalises – unfortunately not where I have been able to find them.  Oh well, it was cool to see the caterpillars.

Well this was a “yep, lots of things in the works, nothing has come to fruition” post.  Next time I hope to have something newsworthy to report.

The University of Delaware has played a role in achieving the highest efficiency for solar power ever recorded, setting a new world record of 43% of sunlight converted into electricity.

A photovoltaic cell from UD was joined by a cell made by Aussie scientists from the University of New South Wales as well as four cells developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Emcore Corporation from the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  Combined, these five cells, each optimized for different parts of the light spectrum, combined to set the record.

The UD Alumni Relations Blog toasts this achievement and looks forward to accompanying any and all UD delegations to Australia to celebrate this world record.  We’ve seen Crocodile Dundee and Kangaroo Jack dozens of times and we can’t wait to hang out with witty, tough Aussies and wily kangaroos!

The research to be published in the journal Progress in Photovoltaics (our favorite!) in September.

Aussies help set new solar power world record [gmagazine.com.au]
University of New South Wales [unsw.edu.au]
National Renewable Energy Laboratory [nrel.gov]
Emcore Corporation [emcore.com]

Nanowerk News) Solar cells could soon be produced more cheaply using nanoparticle “inks” that allow them to be printed like newspaper or painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops to absorb electricity-producing sunlight.

Brian Korgel, a University of Texas at Austin chemical engineer, is hoping to cut costs to one-tenth of their current price by replacing the standard manufacturing process for solar cells – gas-phase deposition in a vacuum chamber, which requires high temperatures and is relatively expensive.

“That’s essentially what’s needed to make solar-cell technology and photovoltaics widely adopted,” Korgel said. “The sun provides a nearly unlimited energy resource, but existing solar energy harvesting technologies are prohibitively expensive and cannot compete with fossil fuels.”

For the past two years, Korgel and his team have been working on this low-cost, nanomaterials solution to photovoltaics – or solar cell – manufacturing. Korgel is collaborating with professors Al Bard and Paul Barbara, both of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Professor Ananth Dodabalapur of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. They recently showed proof-of-concept in an issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The inks could be printed on a roll-to-roll printing process on a plastic substrate or stainless steel. And the prospect of being able to paint the “inks” onto a rooftop or building is not far-fetched. “You’d have to paint the light-absorbing material and a few other layers as well,” Korgel said. “This is one step in the direction towards paintable solar cells.”

Researchers apply the nanoparticle “inks ” as a spray on the solar cells.Korgel uses the light-absorbing nanomaterials, which are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of hair, because their microscopic size allows for new physical properties that can help enable higher-efficiency devices.

In 2002, he co-founded a company called Innovalight, based in California, which is producing inks using silicon as the basis. This time, Korgel and his team are using copper indium gallium selenide or CIGS, which is both cheaper and benign in terms of environmental impact.

“CIGS has some potential advantages over silicon,” Korgel said. “It’s a direct band gap semiconductor, which means that you need much less material to make a solar cell, and that’s one of the biggest potential advantages.”
His team has developed solar-cell prototypes with efficiencies at one percent; however, they need to be about 10 percent.
“If we get to 10 percent, then there’s real potential for commercialization,” Korgel said. “If it works, I think you could see it being used in three to five years.”

He also said that the inks, which are semi-transparent, could help realize the prospect of having windows that double as solar cells. Korgel said his work has attracted the interest of industrial partners.
Source: University of Texas at Austin