With the arrival of cold weather, pellets become another source of heat. This form of energy that comes from biomass not only serves in this way and a project in Spain has demonstrated it.
I+D Olivoltaica. At the Andaltec technology center they have developed a coating for solar panels using transparent wood, which was obtained from pruning waste from olive groves.
The project called Olivoltaica is financed by the Provincial Council of Jaén and seeks to replace the plastic materials of solar cells with biomass.
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How can a solar panel help? Optical coatings derived from olive wood improve light transmission and diffusion, which optimizes the capture of solar energy.
How did they do it? Andaltec researchers have extracted components from wood to create a structure of cellulose microfibers and then infiltrated a transparent polymer into the treated wood. The result is a material with high optical transmittance and light diffusion capacity.
Put into practice. The research team hopes to have a transparent wood sheet ready for testing in photovoltaic modules within a year. The object of study is to replace or reduce the use of glass in solar cells. In addition, they add that using olive wood could have benefits to reduce controlled burning and offer new applications in other sectors.
The efficiency of solar panels. The luminous efficiency that falls on the photovoltaic cell generates electricity. In conventional crystalline silicon panels the theoretical limit is 33.7%, while with perovskite panels in a study it has been found to reach the threshold of 40%.
Other benefits of biomass. The use of biomass can have other uses, such as that proposed by the Graphyte company to capture carbon in bricks composed of biomaterials. For its part in Spain, since the closure of the coal plants, the La Pereda plant, the smallest (50MW), will begin to generate electricity using forest biomass.
Image | Andaltec and Unsplash
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