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NTU scientists discover a way to produce cheaper, more powerful solar cells (From right) Prof Subodh Mhaisalkar, Asst Prof Sum Tze Chien and Dr Nripan Mathews. The Straits Times Monday, Oct 21, 2013 Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have discovered a way to produce cheaper and more powerful solar cells. Get the full story from The Straits Times. Here is the full press release from NTU: In the near future, solar panels will not only be more efficient but also a lot cheaper and affordable for everyone, thanks to research by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) scientists. This next generation solar cell, made from organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials, is about five times cheaper than current silicon-based solar cells, due to a simpler solution-based manufacturing process. Perovskite is known to be a remarkable solar cell material as it can convert up to 15 per cent of sunlight to electricity, close to the efficiency of the current solar cells, but scientists did not know why or how, until now. In a paper published last Friday (18 Oct) in the world's most prestigious academic journal, Science, NTU's interdisciplinary research team was the first in the world to explain this phenomenon. The team of eight researchers led by Assistant Professor Sum Tze Chien and Dr Nripan Mathews had worked closely with NTU Visiting Professor Michael Grätzel, who currently holds the record for perovskite solar cell efficiency of 15 per cent, and is a co-author of the paper. Prof Grätzel, who is based at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), has won multiple awards for his invention of dye-sensitised solar cells. The high sunlight-to-electricity efficiency of perovskite solar cells places it in direct competition with Silicon solar cells and thin film solar cells which are already in the market and have efficiencies close to 20 per cent. The new knowledge on how these solar cells work is now being applied by the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), which is developing a commercial prototype of the perovskite solar cell in collaboration with Australian clean-tech firm Dyesol Limited (ASX: DYE). Asst Prof Sum said the discovery of why perovskite worked so well as a solar cell material was made possible only through the use of cutting-edge equipment and in close collaboration with NTU engineers. "In our work, we utilise ultrafast lasers to study the perovskite materials. We tracked how fast these materials react to light in quadrillionths of a second (roughly 100 billion times faster than a camera flash)," said the Singaporean photophysics expert from NTU's School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. "We discovered that in these perovskite materials, the electrons generated in the material by sunlight can travel quite far. This will allow us to make thicker solar cells which absorb more light and in turn generate more electricity." The NTU physicist added that this unique characteristic of perovskite is quite remarkable since it is made from a simple solution method that normally produces low quality materials. His collaborator, Dr Nripan Mathews, a senior scientist at ERI@N, said that their discovery is a great example of how investment in fundamental research and an interdisciplinary effort, can lead to advances in knowledge and breakthroughs in applied science. "Now that we know exactly how perovskite materials behave and work, we will be able to tweak the performance of the new solar cells and improve its efficiency, hopefully reaching or even exceeding the performance of today's Silicon solar cells," said Dr Mathews, who is also the Singapore R&D Director of the Singapore-Berkeley Research Initiative for Sustainable Energy (SinBeRISE) NRF CREATE programme. "The excellent properties of these materials, allow us to make light weight, flexible solar cells on plastic using cheap processes without sacrificing the good sunlight conversion efficiency." Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, the Executive Director of ERI@N said they are now looking into building prototype solar cell modules based on this exciting class of materials. "Perovskite-based solar cells have the potential to reach 20 per cent solar cell efficiencies and another great benefit of these materials is their amenability to yield different translucent colours, such as red, yellow or brown. Having such colourful solar glass will create new opportunities for architectural design," he added. The NTU team, consisting of six scientists, one postgraduate and one undergraduate, took six months to complete this fundamental research project, which was funded by NTU and the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister's Office, Singapore. [thumbsup]Up for these guys!!!

Hope this will pass on to any cancer patients. True or not, no harm trying since it is better to believe it than nothing. Alkaline Diet for Cancer: Cancer Cells Cannot Survive In an Alkaline Environment Maintaining a diet that promotes an alkaline pH within the body is good protection against cancer. When a person eats this kind of diet, the natural pH balance will lean more towards the alkaline side of the scale, instead of the acid level of the scale. Unfortunately, all too often a person

dunno how true, but i received this in my email frm a fren. read on and decide Research done by Singapore U shows that eating this mushroom can destroy 95% of cancer cells in our body by boosting our immune system. Professor Phan Hwai Chong of Yang Ming Research Centre in Taiwan told Reporter that consuming this kind of mushroom, one of the ingredients in the mushroom can trigger the multiplication of our healthy 'defensive' cells. By out-numbering the cancer cells, healthy cells help eradicate cancer cells. American scientists have since run tests on this particular type of mushroom extract with blood, done outside human body. Results show that mushroom extract is able to destroy cancer cells. According to Taiwan professor, since healthy 'fighting' cells can be multiplied to tens & thousands of times, it can either be used as drip or just by eating mushroom. The mushroom is most frequently taken with steam boat. Cooking time should be less than 3 minutes, or the healing property would greatly diminish.

The future is high on lithium Last Updated: 12:01am BST 09/06/2007 Lithium-ion battery-powered cars came a step closer this week, writes Andrew English American giant General Motors signed development contracts with two companies (Compact Power of Michigan and Continental of Germany) for the advanced development of lithium-ion batteries for its hybrid electric Volt concept. GM hopes to have the Volt, which has its drive train mounted on the chassis rails from the Astra hatchback, on sale by 2012. "The first Volt to go on sale will be the fuel-cell version," said Dr Christopher Borroni-Bird, GM's director of advanced technology, who warned that without government incentives to consumers such technology might be still born. "We can't go on subsidising this business forever," he said. At the same time, Mitsubishi UK MD Jim Tyrrell has confirmed he has asked for 3,000 lithium-ion versions of the Mitsubishi "i" to come to Britain when it goes on sale in 2010. (The petrol-powered "i" goes on sale this summer.) The battery-powered "i" will dispense with the heavy in-rear-wheel motors on the concept car and use a simpler single motor, driving the front wheels. "They will test the car in Tokyo from August," says Tyrrell. "They hadn't planned to sell in Europe until I told them about the congestion charges." So does this mean the fuel cell is dead? Yes, if you believe Ricardo CEO Dave Shemmans. "Battery cars will overtake fuel cells; even the Japanese think that," he said. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.j...09/mnvolt09.xml mitsubishi r tied with Yuasa on the new battery development. mitsu own sista company MHI r also developing newer batteries for cars.