COLLABORATIONS

NATIONAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT IN NEW MATERIALS/ NEW TECHNOLOGIES: FOCUS ON POLYMER-BASED SOLAR PV CELL FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION

Research and development activities currently going on between NASENI, SHESTCO and Obafemi Awolowo University* in the field of conducting polymers (CPs) have increased in a phenomenological manner in the last 25 years due largely to their wide ranging potentials in electronics and opto-electronic applications, including production of PV cells and OLEDs. Inorganic PV cells of Si (and other materials) though have attractive efficiencies generally better than 12% but their costs are still too high. For instance, BP solar crystalline Si PV cells are about 15% efficient and cost $300/m2 or $2.5/W. Thin films cells based on other prominent materials such as GaAs, CdS, CdTe, CuInS 2 and a-Si have promising potentials, but As, Cd , S are toxic, In is expensive and a-Si are much less stable.

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