Recycling old car batteries into solar cells: Environmental twofer could recycle lead batteries to m

Recycling old car batteries into solar cells: Environmental twofer could recycle lead batteries to make solar cells

This could be a classic win-win solution: A system proposed by researchers at MIT recycles materials from discarded car batteries -- a potential source of lead pollution -- into new, long-lasting solar panels that provide emissions-free power.

The system is described in a paper in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, co-authored by professors Angela M. Belcher and Paula T. Hammond, graduate student Po-Yen Chen, and three others. It is based on a recent development in solar cells that makes use of a compound called perovskite -- specifically, organolead halide perovskite -- a technology that has rapidly progressed from initial experiments to a point where its efficiency is nearly competitive with that of other types of solar cells.

"It went from initial demonstrations to good efficiency in less than two years," says Belcher, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT. Already, perovskite-based photovoltaic cells have achieved power-conversion efficiency of more than 19 percent, which is close to that of many commercial silicon-based solar cells.

Initial descriptions of the perovskite technology identified its use of lead, whose production from raw ores can produce toxic residues, as a drawback. But by using recycled lead from old car batteries, the manufacturing process can instead be used to divert toxic material from landfills and reuse it in photovoltaic panels that could go on producing power for decades.

Amazingly, because the perovskite photovoltaic material takes the form of a thin film just half a micrometer thick, the team's analysis shows that the lead from a single car battery could produce enough solar panels to provide power for 30 households.

As an added advantage, the production of perovskite solar cells is a relatively simple and benign process. "It has the advantage of being a low-temperature process, and the number of steps is reduced" compared with the manufacture of conventional solar cells, Belcher says.

Those factors will help to make it "easy to get to large scale cheaply," Chen adds.

Battery pileup ahead

One motivation for using the lead in old car batteries is that battery technology is undergoing rapid change, with new, more efficient types, such as lithium-ion batteries, swiftly taking over the market. "Once the battery technology evolves, over 200 million lead-acid batteries will potentially be retired in the United States, and that could cause a lot of environmental issues," Belcher says.

If given time, we can find ways to recycle old products into great things like solar cells.

Once more fine tuned, this will be a great way to get rid of old car batteries and turn it into something that is better for the environment. I hope that it doesn't have a large carbon footprint when turning the products into solar cells.

I heard that using all these solar cells will suck all the power out of the sun........thus global cooling will take place, and the ozone layer will grow back.....
People don't realise that a paradigm change will use up a massive amount of energy and resources we cannot replace....before we change the paradigm lets be sure we are on the right path.....not like we did with the nuclear industry....

originally posted by: stirling
I heard that using all these solar cells will suck all the power out of the sun........thus global cooling will take place, and the ozone layer will grow back.....
People don't realise that a paradigm change will use up a massive amount of energy and resources we cannot replace....before we change the paradigm lets be sure we are on the right path.....not like we did with the nuclear industry....

Was that a joke? Where do you think all the energy from those solar cells is going? It's getting used, and ultimately it all turns back into heat one way or another. The energy doesn't disappear because it gets routed through a solar cell.

originally posted by: James1982

originally posted by: stirling
I heard that using all these solar cells will suck all the power out of the sun........thus global cooling will take place, and the ozone layer will grow back.....
People don't realise that a paradigm change will use up a massive amount of energy and resources we cannot replace....before we change the paradigm lets be sure we are on the right path.....not like we did with the nuclear industry....

Was that a joke? Where do you think all the energy from those solar cells is going? It's getting used, and ultimately it all turns back into heat one way or another. The energy doesn't disappear because it gets routed through a solar cell.

originally posted by: stirling
I heard that using all these solar cells will suck all the power out of the sun........thus global cooling will take place, and the ozone layer will grow back.....
People don't realise that a paradigm change will use up a massive amount of energy and resources we cannot replace....before we change the paradigm lets be sure we are on the right path.....not like we did with the nuclear industry....

And that is hogwosh. I saw that thread and its just pure unadalterated hogwosh put out by the nuclear/oil industry. Because they think people are retards and will buy it.

Quite the interesting approach, and it dovetails *quite* nicely with this:

www.gizmag.com...