How can solar energy be collected and stored on days when there is no sun? The strange answer is rust according to Stanford University scientists who find that it can allow a battery to hold a larger amount of solar power.
Nicholas Melosah and William Chueh the assistant professors involved used rust* and got it to turn water into oxygen and hydrogen and hold the energy for night time use. Photons turn to electrons and allow the water splitting. When the oxygen and hydrogen combine again, power is created and are minus the effects of fossil fuels.
The research discovered that energy is stored more efficiently in metal oxide solar cells as opposed to silicon solar panels. The former heats and becomes more effective while silicon solar cells heat and lose efficiency.
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Chueh explained that it was the cheaper and easy to obtain metal oxides that produced electricity better than had been believed. The temperature was important when it came to the tests and titanium oxide, rust and other substances were tried out to determine which was most efficient. The higher the temperature, the faster and more mobile the electrons were.
The good news is that there is no need to use external sources for heating the solar cells, as engineering was able to do it all. Andrey Poletayev explained that solar radiation can be concentrated by using magnifying lenses and parabolic mirrors.
Chueh believes there can now be full-time solar energy storage and also store gases that can travel through pipelines without releasing extra carbon.
*Rust: A reddish- or yellowish-brown flaking coating of iron oxide that is formed on iron or steel by oxidation, especially in the presence of moisture.