passive solar systems such as solar chimneys need solar radiation in order to work. therefore, they cannot present stable natural ventilation when solar energy vanishes: to have a more robust and stable condition, solar energy should be stored during the day and released back during the night. phase change materials can save additional thermal energy during the day and release it during the nig...

Energy harvested directly from sunlight offers a desirable approach toward fulfilling, with minimal environmental impact, the need for clean energy. Solar energy is a decentralized and inexhaustible natural resource, with the magnitude of the available solar power striking the earth’s surface at any one instant equal to 130 million 500 MW power plants.1 However, several important goals need to ...

Organic solar cells have the potential to become a low-cost sustainable energy source. Understanding the photoconversion mechanism is key to the design of efficient organic solar cells. In this review, we discuss the processes involved in the photo-electron conversion mechanism, which may be subdivided into exciton harvesting, exciton transport, exciton dissociation, charge transport and extrac...

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Solar energy is potentially the largest source of renewable energy at our disposal, but significant advances are required to make photovoltaic technologies economically viable and, from a life-cycle perspective, environmentally friendly, and consequently scalable. Cellulose nanomaterials are emerging high-value nanoparticles extracted from plants that are abundant, renewable, and sustainable. H...

As one of the major renewable energy sources, solar energy has the potential to become an essential component of future global energy production. With the increasing demand in energy, the harvesting of solar energy using inexpensive materials and manufacturing methods has attracted considerable attention. Organic/ inorganic (i.e., conjugated polymer/nanocrystal (CP/NC)) nanohybrid solar cell, i...

Organic or ‘plastic’ solar cells are attractive for solar photoelectric energy conversion applications where low cost (such as large area), lightweight, and flexible shape are desired. The photoelectric power conversion efficiencies of currently reported organic/polymeric photovoltaic materials are still relatively low (typically less than 10% under AM 1.5 and one Sun intensity), and the three ...

In this article, the effect of plasmonic properties of metal nanoparticles with different shapes, and moreover, their plasmonic-photonic interaction, on solar cell performance were investigated and simulated. Because of low conversion efficiency and then high cost of solar cells, it is difficult to commercialize and replace them with conventional energy resources. But in recent years, the plasm...

One of the major concerns in the power sector is the day-today increasing power demand but the unavailability of enough resources to meet the power demand using the conventional energy sources. Energy is the prime mover of economic growth and is vital to the sustenance of a modern economy .Future economic growth crucially depends on the long-term availability of energy from sources that are aff...

The conversion of solar energy with simultaneous electric energy storage provides a promising means for optimizing energy utilization efficiency and reducing device volume. In this paper, a 3-dimensional mesoporous carbon coated branched TiO2 nanowire composite is rationally designed for direct conversion and storage of solar energy as electric double-layer capacitive energy. The 1-dimensional,...