Researchers at Rice University have announced the discovery of a new breakthrough method for producing carbon nanotubes in bulk fluids.  Rice’s new nanotube “stew” could spur the inexpensive mass production of carbon nanotube-based products, much like the plastics industry employed bulk loads of melted polymers as a cheap base for making everything from medical equipment to polyester shirts to plastic bags, and countless other things in between.

Rice’s nanotube research was sponsored in party by U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.  Aside from their military application, carbon nanotubes have a practically unlimited potential for sustainable civilian products because of their strength, light weight, and electrical conductivity among other properties. Lightweight nanomaterials could boost the gas mileage in cars and airplanes, make thinner and more flexible solar cells, increase the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries (in combination with another new high tech material, graphene), and be used in artificial photosynthesis to generate hydrogen fuel.

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Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have made a three-dimensional photovoltaic solar cell around an optical fibre, a revolutionary new approach that could pave the way for a new generation of hyper-flexible solar systems.

According to team-leader Professor Zhong Lin Wang, “Using this technology, we can make photovoltaic generators that are foldable, concealed and mobile. Optical fibre could conduct sunlight into a building’s walls where the nanostructures would convert it to electricity. This is truly a three dimensional solar cell.”

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Computer technology is always about being one step ahead of competitors. Information technology moves faster than light it seems, and by the time your new computer arrives at your doorstep, it is already out of date. Dell, whose computers can be found in most offices, homes, and campuses across the country, has been doing its best to stay ahead of the curve.

Proving it is both environmentally friendly and hip to the trends of popular culture, Dell has just finished installing a grove of solar trees at its Corporate headquarters in Round Rock, Texas.

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New research at the University of Florida (UF) has just brought to light a new method in the capturing and guiding of energy that may lead to cheaper and more efficient solar cells.

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You can check out the fascinating and entertaining video here.

Image credit: Kronn at Wikimedia Commons under a GNU Free Documentation License.

Chemical maker DuPont (NYSE:DD) said this week it expects to triple its photovoltaic sales to $1 billion annually by 2012.

The increase will come as the market for solar power increases and the company boosts its own ability to produce solar cells, company officials said during the Jefferies 7th Global Clean Technology Conference.

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The manufacturing costs of solar power — or at least for thin-film photovoltaic panels — have broken below a golden benchmark, as reported by Popular Mechanics: $1 per watt.

First Solar, based in Tempe, Ariz., has brought the costs down to $0.98 per watt. The company says that further cost reductions will be achieved as technological and manufacturing process potentials are reached.

But things are not all rosy since reaching this milestone of sorts. Popular Mechanics reported:

Despite the buck-per-watt announcement, First Solar’s share price plummeted more than 20 percent on Wednesday, thanks to warnings from CEO Mike Ahearn about the effect of the credit crisis on potential solar customers—as much as 10 to 15 percent of current orders might default. He recently told analysts in a conference call that “as good as things look for the mid-term and beyond, the short-term outlook for the solar industry in our view has never looked more difficult.”

Australian scientists at CSIRO’s Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC) are on a quest to make solar cells as easy to print as money. Trials of the flexible, large area, cost-effective, reel-to-reel printable plastic solar cells will even be conducted by Securency International — a banknote printing company.

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The company responsible for the project, Solar Spark Australia, is the first to be awarded Major Project Facillitation status under the Rudd government, and it plans to begin powering 9,000 homes by late next year.

This marks increased hope that Australia can meet goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2050.

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Using natural butterfly wings as a template, the scientists were able to make copies of the solar collecting scales and transfer those to dye-sensitive solar cells.

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What if you could walk into your local hardware store and buy a cheap solar panel to hang on your wall? That may not be such a far-fetched idea according to scientists at the UCLA Henri Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. A team of researchers has designed a new polymer (plastic) with greater sunlight absorption and conversion capabilities than any polymer seen before.

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Chinese and Swiss researchers announced earlier this week that they have reached the highest efficiency yet for dye-sensitized solar cells (Grätzel cells). The photovoltaic cells are cheaper than silicon-based solar cells, but until this week’s discovery their drawbacks have outweighed their benefits.

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Scientists at the University of New South Wales have set a new world record by creating the first silicon solar cell to achieve 25% efficiency.

Team leader, Prof. Martin Green of the university’s ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence, says their world-beating solar cell is now a massive six percent more efficient than the next best technology. The record edges the current generation of solar cell technology closer to the theoretical limit of 29% efficiency.

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Scientists have created a new material that could dramatically increase the efficiency of solar cells, by literally capturing every color of the rainbow.

Whereas other materials only catch a small range of light frequencies, and therefore only a small fraction of the potential energy, the new invention is capable of absorbing all the energy contained in sunlight. According to team leader, Prof. Malcolm Chisolm, “There are other such hybrids out there, but the advantage of our material is that we can cover the entire range of the solar spectrum.”

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The material is a computerized lab creation that combines electrically conductive plastic with several metals including molybdenum and titanium. It overcomes the two major roadblocks involved in capturing solar energy: taking in all energy from sunlight and producing easily-capturable electons. Thus, the new material may have the potential to revolutionize how manufactured solar cells obtain energy from the sun.

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The material was discovered when a team of Harvard University scientists shone an ultra-powerful laser (briefly producing the same amount of energy as the sun falling on the entire surface of the Earth) on a silicon wafer, before adding sulphur hexafluoride. The result was a silicon wafer that looked black to the naked eye, but when examined under an electron microscope turned out to be covered with a massive amount of ultra-tiny spikes.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have developed a new type of silicon solar cell that is flexible enough to be used on a curved surface or fabric. Currently, most solar cells are rigid due to the use of plastic in their production.

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The iJET technique is so easy and cheap to carry out that it could revolutionize access to solar technology in the developing world.

In a recent radio interview (audio), Nicole Kuepper, a 23 year-old PhD student at the University of New South Wales, explained the process.

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Suniva, an Atlanta-based startup, has recently developed solar cells that can achieve 20 percent efficiency. Unlike other high-efficiency cells, Suniva is using low-cost processes that will make their solar cells cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity.

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