Newly designed Marigold-like nanostructured material shows record high efficiency of converting sunlight to usable heat

• A new material designed with unique marigold-like carbon nano-structures and demonstrating highest efficiency so far of converting solar to heat energy, can transform the solar-thermal energy market in India targeting towards net zero carbon emission.
• For most of human history, fossil fuels have served our thermal energy requirements with adverse effects on environment and biodiversity and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Though off late humans have learned to harness light directly from the sun and converting it thermal energy, only a miniscule percentage of the total heat energy the sun radiates has been utilised.
• Now, a new material designed at the Indian Institute of Bombay (IIT Bombay) has made a breakthrough in the amount of heat that can be absorbed and stored. Called nanostructured hard-carbon florets or NCF in short, the material has shown the highest solar-thermal conversion efficiency so far—87%. It absorbs more than 97% of the ultraviolet, visible and infrared components of sunlight and converts this efficiently into thermal energy that can be effectively transferred to either air or water for practical applications. The researchers involved in the study demonstrated that NCFs heats the air from room temperature to 60 degree Celsius and can thereby provide smoke-free space-heating solutions.

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Published date : 16 Nov 2023 11:02AM