Japan develops washable solar cells like clothes

A Japanese research group has successfully developed a super-slim organic solar cell that is waterproof, easy to attach to clothes, and easy to wash.

The research team was led by Riken, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and University. Tokyo founder.

Solar cells can be washed like normal clothes.

Typically, the sensor on the wearable device uses battery power to operate, however space and battery life are quite limited. On the other hand, the weakest point of traditional batteries today is the low energy conversion capacity, which is not flexible or water resistant.

According to Japan Today, the solar panels developed by the Japanese research group are covered with elastic material, which can provide at least about 1mW of electricity and easily attach to clothing. As a result, users can enjoy a full day of wear without the hassle of running out of batteries.

Battery performance is even 80% even under mechanical compression and about 100 minutes in water.

Previously, the difficulties in battery technology such as the difficult to identify due to the size of the thin, difficult to stabilize the high performance in the long time has made the idea of solar cells printed on the fabric can not come true.

The organic solar cell has a reversed structure, achieving impressive performance stability.

However, with this study, the team used the self-developed PNTz4T semiconductor polymer from 2012. The organic solar cell has a reversed structure for impressive performance stability.

With new solar cells, energy conversion efficiency is 7.9%. Tested even when soaked in water and scouring for 120 minutes, this performance only dropped to 5.4%.

The team is now expecting to use these solar panels to power future wearable electronic devices.