Material challenge: Can a battery and solar cell hybrid system really work?
“Currently single systems of photovoltaic cells which are connected together – mostly lead-based batteries and vast amounts of cable – are in use. Solar panels on the roof with a battery in the cellar. This takes up a lot of space, needs frequent maintenance and is not optimally efficient,” pointed out Ilie Hanzu from TU Graz’s Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Materials. “We want to make a battery and solar cell hybrid out of two single systems which is not only able to convert electrical energy but also store it.”
Hanzu and his team – in cooperation with Graz Centre for Electron Microscopy (ZFE) – is entering unknown scientific territory. In the SolaBat project the TU Graz team want to develop a new, application-relevant concept and test its capability.
The key to success lies in the combination of functional materials.
“In the hybrid system high-performance materials share their tasks in the solar cell and in the battery. We need materials which reliably fulfil their respective tasks and which are also electrochemically compatible with other materials so that they work together in one device,” explained Hanzu. Instead of environmentally damaging cobalt-containing electrodes, eco-friendly titanates will be used as the active materials. Polymer-based cells – in other words, organic solar cells – could also be used. “We have to know what happens when the materials come into contact with each other. For this reason, our project partner, the Centre for Electron Microscopy, is investigating the underlying fundamental interface effects and reactions,” said Hanzu. The other three work packages of the project concentrate on materials for the photovoltaic side and the battery side as well as the compatibility of materials and the assembly of both components into one device.
The advantages of a ‘2 in 1’ hybrid system are space saving, improved efficiency and management simplicity. In the SolaBat project, the basics are being developed and tested, but even at this early stage a variety of potential applications of such a system are on the horizon – from mobile batteries and car batteries to larger solar panels.
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