in this investigation, ag@tio2 nanocomposite was prepared by deposition of silver nanoclusters onto commercial tio2 nanoparticles (known as p25 tio2) via photodeposition technique as clean and simple photochemical route. the synthesized ag@tio2 nanocomposite was utilized in the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cell (dssc) chiefly because, compared to pure tio2, the electron affinity of ag@ti...

Current solar to thermal energy conversion technologies, including concentrated solar power (CSP) and solar water heaters (SWH) utilize absorber surfaces that collect incident solar radiation. However, these absorber surfaces emit thermal energy (at their temperature) in the infrared (IR) spectrum, resulting in decreased overall efficiency for solar-to-thermal conversion. Selective absorber sur...

Solar photovoltaics (PV) are emerging as a major alternative energy source. The cost of PV electricity depends on the efficiency of conversion of light to electricity. Despite of steady growth in the efficiency for several decades, little has been achieved to reduce the impact of real-world operating temperatures on this efficiency. Here we demonstrate a highly efficient cooling solution to the...

Manipulating the flow of energy in nanoscale and molecular photonic devices is of both fundamental interest and central importance for applications in light energy harvesting optoelectronics. Under erratic solar irradiance conditions, unregulated power fluctuations in a light-harvesting photocell lead to inefficient energy storage in conventional solar cells and potentially fatal oxidative dama...

ZnO films consisting of either polydisperse or monodisperse aggregates of nanocrystallites were fabricated and studied as dye-sensitized solar-cell electrodes. The results revealed that the overall energy-conversion efficiency of the cells could be significantly affected by either the average size or the size distribution of the ZnO aggregates. The highest overall energy-conversion efficiency o...

Supramolecular photochemistry as well as solar cells are fascinating topics of current interest in Inorganic Photochemistry and very active research fields which have attracted wide attention in last two decades. A brief outline of the investigations in these fields carried out in our Laboratory of Inorganic Photochemistry and Energy Conversion is given here with no attempt of an exhaustive cov...

in this study, estimation of global and diffuse solar radiations of selected cities in nigeria was carried out to assess the feasibility of solar energy utilization. the results of this work show the variation of direct and diffuse component of solar radiation in summer and winter months. the contribution of diffuse solar radiation is high during the monsoon months whereas sky conditions are cl...

Supramolecular photochemistry as well as solar cells are fascinating topics of current interest in Inorganic Photochemistry and very active research fields which have attracted wide attention in last two decades. A brief outline of the investigations in these fields carried out in our Laboratory of Inorganic Photochemistry and Energy Conversion is given here with no attempt of an exhaustive cov...

One of the most significant current discussions in life is solar energy and has been in use since the beginning of time. Increasingly, man is learning how to yoke this important resource and use it to replace traditional energy sources. Recent developments in the field of solar energy have led to a renewed interest in Solar cells to store this energy and reproduce electricity. Unfortunately the...

Spectral control of the emissivity of surfaces is essential in applications such as solar thermal energy and thermophotovoltaic energy conversion in order to achieve the highest conversion efficiencies possible. We investigated surfaces consisting of periodic, nanoscale V-grooves coated with aperiodic metal-dielectric stacks. This approach combines impedance matching using tapered metallic feat...