Thin Film Solar Dye Shines on Fashion
Clothing and Accessory designers can now look to incorporating flexible thin film solar technology in to their latest design range.
Ultra thin solar cell technology has been commercially developed by G24 Innovations and has begun supplies to manufacturers to incorporate solar technology. While the typical idea of solar panels are the photovoltaic kind that adorn rooftops and cover large areas of unused land to supply electrical energy, the thin film is of a different breed altogether.
A bit of technicalities – The technology is called Dye sensitized solar cells, luckily DSSC for short, are made from different materials than PV panels which typically use silicon and cadmium. Nearly all the manufacturing is automated and thin film cells are made in a process similar to ink jet printing.
The result is a film of less than 1mm thick that can be incorporated in to bag, backpacks, clothing and tent material just to name a few uses. The panels have around a 10% efficiency of converting the suns rays to electrical energy.
Now these cells won`t power your home, yet, but they are capable of producing enough energy to keep small devices like mobile phones or running low energy lighting such as LED technology. The advantage they do give is that they can be virtually incorporated in to products without affecting the design or adding weight.
The first products are already being shown and a Hong Kong based company, Mascotte Industrial Associates is producing products which includes backpacks and bags as well as covers for eBooks. G24 Innovations, since 2008, have an exclusive relationship with Mascotte Industrial Associates which allowed MIA to use the solar technology in their range of products.
The future of solar Dye technology should developed further with advances in efficiency, durability and range of materials that this could be incorporated into. That would enable many low power devices to be practically self-powering as the Dye has the ability to generate power under very low light conditions.
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