MIT Self-Healing Solar Cells Makes Harnessing Solar Power Efficient

MIT energy researchers are at it again, and this time they’re introducing self-healing solar cells that would make it easier to go green without any loss of power over time.

The biggest constraint with solar technology is that the sun’s rays could damage the materials used to harness the energy that solar rays provide. Sunlight will, over time, degrade many systems designed to harness the power of the sun, but plants have been efficient at utilizing solar power without any degradation, and MIT scientists are now mimicking plants in their new invention of self-healing solar cells. Essentially, plants address degradation issues by having their molecules break down and re-assemble from scratch.

MIT professor Michael Strano and his team of student researchers have developed self-assembling molecules that can harvest solar power and be repeatedly broken down and reassembled with the addition or removal of a solution. Their work was published in Nature Chemistry.

For full details of the process and Professor Strano’s research, you can visit the MIT webpage to learn more.