Revolutionary glass building blocks generate their own solar energy

There’s a new building block in town, and it generates its own clean energy. Researchers from Exeter University developed new glass blocks that are embedded with small solar cells. Not only do the blocks generate energy, but they also provide thermal insulation and allow natural light to enter buildings.Called Solar Squared, the blocks are embedded during the manufacturing process with an array of optical elements that focus sunlight on tiny solar cells. The blocks are made to ensure maximum solar absorption, even in tricky urban areas.

“The modular design is completely scalable, and allows for seamless architectural integration,” according to an Exeter press release. “The streamlined nature of the technology enables it to be embedded in conventional construction materials, meaning that its applications are myriad.”

Professor Tapas Mallick and Dr Hasan Baig, along with IIB Research Commercialization Manager Jim Williams, hope their patent-pending design will revolutionize theconstruction industry.

Related: Tesla’s new solar roof is actually cheaper than a regular roof

“Deployment of standard solar technology is limited by the large area requirement and the negative visual impact,” said Dr Baig from the Environment and Sustainability Institute in Cornwall. “We wanted to overcome these limitations by introducing technologies that become a part of the building’s envelope. We now have the capability to build integrated, affordable, efficient, and attractive solar technologies as part of the building’s architecture, in places where energy demandis highest, whilst having minimal impact on the landscape and on quality of life.”

There are challenges, though.

Dr Baig says it’s difficult to communicate how the building product serves a dual purpose, and that expectations of price should reflect the same. “People tend to make comparisons with standard solar panelsfound on roof tops but it’s necessary to also include the value of the underlying building material in order to quantify the value proposition.”

For this reason, the group aims to ensure that Solar Squared will cost less than conventional glass blocks with the added cost of electricity. They are currently seeking test sites and investors – in case you know someone who can take this to the next level.

CEO of Tesla and Space X revealed that the new car would also feature the ever so amazing photovoltaic glass technology

The all amazing and affordable Tesla Model 3’s stocks have just been raised even further by Elon Musk’s latest announcement. CEO of Tesla and Space X revealed that the new car would also feature the ever so amazing photovoltaic glass technology that they are using in the company's recently announced solar roof system. This combination will now allow the car’s roof to defrost ice and melt away the snow while continuously generating electricity from the sun.

These revelations were made during a conference call involving Tesla's merger with SolarCity. Musk also described the creation of a special Tesla glass division, which will now only work towards refining the solar roof system design. Tesla Model 3 is going to be the company's first affordable electric vehicle. And while it is expected to be released in 2017, its preorders have already been sold out.

Pic Credits: Tesla

Besides the estimated 215 miles driving range and the surety of Tesla’s quality, the amazing price of $35,000 makes it a pretty difficult choice to pass on. And now Musk’s tweet hinting at solar panels being integrated into the cars have left the internet in a frenzy. The tweet read,

"Solar glass tiles can also incorporate heating elements, like rear defroster on a car, to clear roof of snow and keep generating energy."

Pic Credits: Tesla

So a state of the art car with heating elements incorporated directly into the glass solar panels which run purely from the Sun, this truly is a cherry on the top of an already scrumptious looking cake. Musk also added that system is "strongly net positive," meaning that the melting away of frost will consume a minimal amount of energy. Add the recent merger between Tesla and SolarCity to this, and now we have all the Tesla enthusiasts waiting on the edge of their seats for the release of this beauty.

Superhydrophobic glass coating offerts clear benefits

A moth's eye and lotus leaf were the inspirations for an antireflective water-repelling, or superhydrophobic, glass coating that holds significant potential for solar panels, lenses, detectors, windows, weapons systems and many other products.

The discovery by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, detailed in a paper published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, is based on a mechanically robust nanostructured layer of porous glass film. The coating can be customized to be superhydrophobic, fog-resistant and antireflective.

"While lotus leaves repel water and self-clean when it rains, a moth's eyes are antireflective because of naturally covered tapered nanostructures where the refractive index gradually increases as light travels to the moth's cornea," said Tolga Aytug, lead author of the paper and a member of ORNL's Materials Chemistry Group. "Combined, these features provide truly game-changing ability to design coatings for specific properties and performance."

To be superhydrophobic, a surface must achieve a water droplet contact angle exceeding 150 degrees. ORNL's coating has a contact angle of between 155 and 165 degrees, so water literally bounces off, carrying away dust and dirt. This property combined with the suppression of light reflection from a glass surface is critical for improved performance in numerous optical applications, Aytug said.

The base material - a special type of glass coating - is also highly durable, which sets it apart from competing technologies, according to Aytug, who described the process.

"We developed a method that starts with depositing a thin layer of glass material on a glass surface followed by thermal processing and selective material removal by etching," he said. "This produces a surface consisting of a porous three-dimensional network of high-silica content glass that resembles microscopic coral."

The fact the coating can be fabricated through industry standard techniques makes it easy and inexpensive to scale up and apply to a wide variety of glass platforms.

"The unique three-dimensionality interconnected nanoporous nature of our coatings significantly suppresses Fresnel light reflections from glass surfaces, providing enhanced transmission over a wide range of wavelengths and angles," Aytug said. The Fresnel effect describes the amount of light that is reflected versus the amount transmitted.

Where solar panels are concerned, the suppression of reflected light translates into a 3-6 percent relative increase in light-to-electricity conversion efficiency and power output of the cells. Coupled with the superhydrophobic self-cleaning ability, this could also substantially reduce maintenance and operating costs of solar panels. In addition, the coating is highly effective at blocking ultraviolet light.

Other potential applications include goggles, periscopes, optical instruments, photodetectors and sensors. In addition, the superhydrophobic property can be effective at preventing ice and snow buildup on optical elements and can impede biofouling in marine applications.

Aytug emphasized that the impact abrasion resistance of the coating completes the package, making it suitable for untold applications.

"This quality differentiates it from traditional polymeric and powder-based counterparts, which are generally mechanically fragile," Aytug said. "We have shown that our nanostructure glass coatings exhibit superior mechanical resistance to impact abrasion - like sand storms - and are thermally stable to temperatures approaching 500 degrees Celsius."

Other ORNL authors of the paper, titled "Monolithic Graded-Refractive-Index Glass-based Antireflective Coatings: Broadband/Omnidirectional Light Harvesting and Self-Cleaning Characteristics," were Andrew Lupini, Gerald Jellison, Pooran Joshi, Ilia Ivanov, Tao Liu, Peng Wang, Rajesh Menon, Rosa Trejo, Edgar Lara-Curzio, Scott Hunter, John Simpson, Parans Paranthaman and David Christen.

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