Delaware Student Generates Hydrogen from Sunlight

19 April 2012

A Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware (UD), Newark, Delaware (US), could be days away from creating solar hydrogen, a truly clean fuel with zero emissions. Erik Koepf intends to achieve this breakthrough with his own reactor, which he designed to use highly concentrated sunlight and zinc oxide powder to produce hydrogen in a theoretically self-sustaining cycle. Essentially, he wants to thermochemically store solar energy and bottle it.

Exfoliation Technique Creates 20-Micrometer Thin Solar Wafers

11 April 2012

Twin Creeks Technologies, a small equipment technology company headquartered in San Jose, Silicon Valley, California (US), has developed a manufacturing system that can produce 20 µm monocrystalline solar wafers. Silicon is still the most expensive element in a solar module. The solar wafer production system, which the company calls “Hyperion,” could cut solar production costs in half by requiring dramatically less material.