A new clean technology to turn sunlight into liquid fuel could drastically shrink the need for large plantations to grow crops for biofuels, while combating climate change, Harvard University researchers said on Thursday.

Dubbed "bionic leaf 2.0", the technology uses solar panels to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen, the scientists said in a study published in the journal Science. "Bionic leaf 2.0" converts solar energy into liquid fuel with 10 percent efficiency, far higher than the 1 percent efficiency seen in the fastest-growing plants that use a similar process, Nocera added.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/clean-fuel-bionic-...land-193128426.html?nhp=1

Newly discovered light harvesting properties could lead to cheaper solar panels

" Researchers have discovered that some solar cells could be more efficient than previously thought possible, opening new doors for their development.

A team led by scientists from Imperial College London have revealed how a particular molecular structure can boost the effectiveness of polymer solar cells."


http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp...y/news_22-6-2016-15-24-49

And "Artificial photosynthesis a step closer with new process.
Scientists discover a process that could enhance our ability to harvest energy from the Sun for electricity and fuels.

A process to enhance the performance of solar technologies such as solar cells and photocatalysts, and potentially make their production cheaper, has been discovered by scientists."

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp...ry/news_22-6-2016-16-0-56

On Thursday, a team of scientists announced in the journal Science that they have created a device that absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and uses sunlight to break it into a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called synthesis gas or “syngas,” that can be used directly or turned into diesel or other liquid fuels, said Amin Salehi-Khojin, a mechanical engineer at the University of Illinois at Chicago who leads the lab that conducted the research.

“This is a real artificial leaf, ” Salehi-Khojin said. Where plants use sunlight to power photosynthesis, absorbing CO2 and turning it into sugar for energy, “we use the energy from the sun, and by CO2 remediation, we store the energy of the sun in the chemical bonds” of the syngas.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/solar-device-remov...here-180140821.html?nhp=1

A U of T Engineering innovation could make printing solar cells as easy and inexpensive as printing a newspaper. Dr. Hairen Tan and his team have cleared a critical manufacturing hurdle in the development of a relatively new class of solar devices called perovskite solar cells. This alternative solar technology could lead to low-cost, printable solar panels capable of turning nearly any surface into a power generator.

"The Toronto team's computational studies beautifully explain the role of the newly developed electron-selective layer. The work illustrates the rapidly-advancing contribution that computational materials science is making towards rational, next-generation energy devices," said Professor Alan Aspuru-Guzik, an expert on computational materials science in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, who was not involved in the work.

http://www.solardaily.com/reports/Printable_s..._a_little_closer_999.html

Design rules for minimizing voltage losses in high-efficiency organic solar cells
A key challenge facing the development of organic solar cells is that they usually have large energy losses. "We have formulated some rational design rules to minimise energy losses in organic solar cells. Following these rules, we present a range of examples with low energy losses and high power conversion efficencies", says Feng Gao, associate professor at the Division of Biomolecular and Organic Electronics at Linkoping University.

The design rules, which challenge some previously held ideas, have been published in an article in the prestigious journal Nature Materials. Using these design rules, organic solar cells promise to catch up with their competitors with respect to power conversion efficiency, which measures the fraction of the energy in the sun's radiation that is converted to electricity. The theoretical limit for the fraction of the sun's energy that can be obtained in solar cells is around 33%. Laboratory experiments with silicon-based solar cells have achieved 25% at best. Researchers have until now believed that the limit for organic solar cells is lower.

"But we now know that there is no difference - the theoretical limit is the same for solar cells manufactured from silicon, perovskites or polymers", says Olle Inganas, professor of biomolecular and organic electronics, Linkoping university.
http://www.solardaily.com/reports/Design_rule...anic_solar_cells_999.html