Oil and gas company enters the solar-nano frontier

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 03 Aug 2011

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A new partnership between an energy firm and a technology research centre is looking to push forward the development of solar energy capture, and explore the potential for commercial applications.

Since opening in May 2010 a joint research initiative between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Italian energy firm Eni has worked on roadmaps for its most promising solar breakthroughs.

The roadmaps will enable the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Centre (SFC) to focus on developing technologies suited to commercial applications and how next steps - including scaling up these breakthroughs - can be tackled.

Paper solar cells

While most of the R&D projects are unlikely to be commercially viable before the latter half of this decade, some could be ready for production around 2015. One of these is a solar cell printed on paper that could help to open up opportunities for cheaper photovoltaic (PV) modules, where high efficiencies and very long lifetimes are not a requirement.

Findings of the printed solar cell project were announced at the time of the centre's opening. Scaling up the prototypes should occur in the next 2-3 years.

When Eni started the research partnership with MIT in 2008, it anticipated that the research would take 10 years to translate into industrial activity, according to Nicola De Blasio, vice president of the R&D international development studies and research department.

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This article appears in full in Volume 3, issue 6 of +Plastic Electronics magazine, a nanotechnology special. The issue includes news reports on the latest developments in wearable technology, and how quantum dots are being used in thermoelectric devices, as well as expanding on the ENI-MIT partnership.
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