Mining Fool’s Gold for Solar
Cyrus Wadia is using abundant materials to grow nanocrystals for cheaper photovoltaics. Fool’s gold, also called pyrite or iron sulfide, can be unearthed just about anywhere, from the hills of California to the villages of Yunnan Province in China. But instead of digging pyrite up, researcher Cyrus Wadia is making pure nanoparticles of the compound from iron and sulfur salts in his lab at the University of California, Berkeley. His ultimate goal is to turn fool’s gold into real treasure: an inexpensive solar cell. [From this link you can read the article, view the making of the solar cells from pyrite and watch Cyrus Wadia make a solar cell: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23548/?nlid=2453&a=f]