Record 45% efficiency with solar panels

 Sunlight split in two could help solar panels achieve record 45% efficiency

In the race to make solar energy cheaper and more efficient, a team of UNSW Sydney scientists and engineers have found a way to push past one of the biggest limits in renewable technology. The researchers used equipment to interrogate the behaviour of light and other energy, at ultra-fast speeds. Silicon’s efficiency wall may finally be cracked, thanks to UNSW’s light-splitting breakthrough. Laser facility used to study light and energy across wavelengths and time scales. It could reshape solar power, scientists at UNSW Sydney have shown how to extract twice the energy from a single particle of light. Their discovery could help solar panels break past the long-standing efficiency limits of silicon technology. Singlet fission is a process where a single particle of light, a photon, can be split into two packets of energy, effectively doubling the electrical output when applied to technologies harnessing the sun. In a study appearing in ACS Energy Letters , the UNSW team, known as "Omega Silicon", showed how this works on an organic material which could one day be mass-produced specifically for use with solar panels.

Most solar panels today rely on silicon, a proven and affordable material. But silicon has a natural ceiling, converting only about 27 % of sunlight into electricity. The theoretical limit stands at 29.4 %. A large part of the sun’s energy is lost as heat. The UNSW team, known as Omega Silicon, aims to change that through a process called singlet fission. It allows one photon to split into two packets of energy, effectively doubling the output. “A lot of the energy from light in a solar cell is wasted as heat, which itself is also a form of energy,” said Dr. Ben Carwithen, a postdoctoral researcher at UNSW’s School of Chemistry. “We’re finding ways to take that wasted energy and turn it into more electricity instead.” At its heart, the idea of the technology is simple, to make the most of the sun's energy. The discovery builds on more than a decade of fundamental research led by Professor Tim Schmidt, head of UNSW's School of Chemistry. His team was the first in the world to use magnetic fields to reveal a key part of the singlet fission pathway. "Our previous study addressed the route of this process," Prof. Schmidt says. "We used magnetic fields to manipulate the emitted light and reveal how singlet fission occurs. This hadn't been done before." Previous experiments with a material called tetracene had shown promise but failed outside the lab because it degraded in air and moisture. The UNSW team found that a compound called DPND, or dipyrrolonaphthyridinedione, performs the same job while staying stable in outdoor conditions.

“We’ve shown that you can interface silicon with this stable material, which undergoes singlet fission, and then injects extra electrical charge,” Dr. Carwithen said. “It’s still an early step, but it’s the first demonstration that this can actually work in a realistic system.” The work builds on more than a decade of research led by Professor Tim Schmidt, head of UNSW’s School of Chemistry. His team was the first to use magnetic fields to trace how singlet fission unfolds at the molecular level. Understanding the process helped the researchers design better materials and layer structures. “Blue light has more energy, but most of that gets lost as heat in a normal solar cell,” Prof. Schmidt explained. “With singlet fission, that excess energy can be turned into usable electricity instead.” Associate Professor Murad Tayebjee, who supervised the study, described it as “a big step forward” for solar technology. “It is the first demonstration of singlet fission on silicon using a relatively stable organic molecule based on industrial pigments,” he said.

"A lot of the energy from light in a solar cell is wasted as heat—which itself is also a form of energy," says Dr. Ben Carwithen, a postdoctoral researcher at UNSW's School of Chemistry. "We're finding ways to take that wasted energy and turn it into more electricity instead." The approach works by adding an ultra-thin organic layer to a conventional silicon cell. “In principle, it’s just painting an extra layer on top of the existing architecture,” Dr. Carwithen said. “We need to find a way of making it work, but there’s no reason why it can’t.” Most of today's solar panels are made from silicon, a reliable and cheap technology. However, there are limits to silicon's efficiency. Singlet fission offers a way past that barrier. When sunlight hits certain organic materials, one high-energy photon can produce two lower-energy excitations. So, two packets of usable energy are produced, instead of just one. "Introducing singlet fission into a silicon solar panel will increase its efficiency," says Professor Ned Ekins-Daukes, project lead and head of UNSW's School of Photovoltaic & Renewable Energy Engineering. "It enables a molecular layer to supply additional current to the panel."

The UNSW team has now demonstrated that a compound called DPND, or dipyrrolonaphthyridinedione, can do the same job while remaining stable under real-world outdoor conditions. "We've shown that you can interface silicon with this stable material, which undergoes singlet fission, and then injects extra electrical charge," Dr. Carwithen says. "It's still an early step, but it's the first demonstration that this can actually work in a realistic system." If scaled successfully, the technique could raise solar efficiency from the current 27% to as high as 45%. “Pushing towards 30% would already be fantastic,” Dr. Carwithen said. “But there’s a higher ceiling we can hopefully reach.”The project is supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s Ultra Low Cost Solar program, which targets panels with more than 30% efficiency at under 30 cents per watt by 2030. Seven major solar companies are already monitoring the UNSW team’s progress.

By understanding these underlying physics, the researchers were able to design better materials and layer structures to make the effect more efficient. "Different colours of light carry different energies," Prof. Schmidt says. "Blue light has more energy, but most of that gets lost as heat in a normal solar cell. "With singlet fission, that excess energy can be turned into usable electricity instead." Supervising author UNSW Associate Professor Murad Tayebjee says this work is "a big step forward" for solar panel technology. "It is the first demonstration of singlet fission on silicon using a relatively stable organic molecule based on industrial pigments," Tayebjee says. A pigment is something that provides colour. Colours absorb light. Industrial pigments don't degrade over time, such as those used in automotive paints. “We have industry partners waiting in the wings,” Dr. Carwithen said. “They’re ready to help commercialize this if we can show it works in the lab.” A small-scale proof of concept could arrive within a few years. “There could be a big breakthrough next week and everything clicks,” he said. “But a more realistic timeline is five years.”

The new technology works by adding an ultra-thin organic layer to the top of a conventional silicon cell. "In principle, it's just painting an extra layer on top of the existing architecture," Dr. Carwithen says. "We need to find a way of making it work, but there's no reason why it can't." The theoretical limit for solar panels using singlet fission is around 45% efficiency, a huge leap forward from current technology. "Pushing towards 30% would already be fantastic," Dr. Carwithen says. "But there's a higher ceiling we can hopefully reach." The research is part of a broader national effort to make solar power even cheaper and more powerful. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) selected UNSW's singlet fission project in 2023 for its Ultra Low Cost Solar program, which aims to deliver panels capable of more than 30% efficiency at less than 30 cents per watt by 2030. Dr. Carwithen estimates a small-scale proof of concept could be ready within years, but admits science doesn't always move in straight lines.

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Making clean fuel faster and cheaper with CO2

 Catalyst breakthrough converts CO2 into clean fuel faster and cheaper

A new copper-magnesium-iron catalyst transforms CO2 into CO at low temperatures with record-breaking efficiency and stability. The discovery paves the way for affordable, scalable production of carbon-neutral synthetic fuels. Researchers in Korea have created a low-temperature copper catalyst which converts CO2 into fuel components with record speed and efficiency. Research team has developed a catalyst which transforms carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide (CO), a vital building block for sustainable synthetic fuels such as e-fuels and methanol. Team from the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) has achieved a major technological breakthrough. This carbon monoxide is a vital building block for manufacturing synthetic fuels, such as e-fuels and methanol, marking a significant step toward carbon neutrality and the commercialisation of sustainable energy solutions.

Researchers in a team of scientists led by Dr. Kee Young Koo from the Hydrogen Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (President Yi Chang-Keun, hereafter referred to as KIER) has created a world-leading catalyst capable of transforming carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, into an essential ingredient for producing eco-friendly fuels. The process, known as the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction, is a crucial technique for utilising captured CO2 as a feedstock. It reacts CO2 with hydrogen (H2) to produce CO and water (H2O). While the reaction typically requires high temperatures, above 800°C, to achieve high CO2 conversion, high heat often causes conventional nickel-based catalysts to degrade. At lower temperatures, common catalysts produce unwanted by-products like methane, reducing CO productivity.

The reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide (CO) and water (H2O) by reacting it with hydrogen (H2) in a reactor. The resulting carbon monoxide can then be combined with hydrogen to make syngas, a fundamental building block used to produce synthetic fuels. Because of its ability to recycle CO2 into usable fuel components, the RWGS reaction is seen as a promising pathway for advancing sustainable energy production. The KIER team, led by Dr. Kee Young Koo, successfully addressed these challenges by developing a cost-effective, abundant copper-based catalyst. The newly developed catalyst is a copper–magnesium–iron mixed oxide featuring a layered double hydroxide (LDH) structure. This innovative design incorporates iron and magnesium to fill the spaces between copper particles, effectively preventing particle agglomeration and significantly enhancing the catalyst’s thermal stability at lower operating temperatures. This structural stability is key, as copper-based catalysts can selectively produce only carbon monoxide at temperatures below 400 °C, avoiding methane formation.

Traditionally, the RWGS reaction operates best at temperatures above 800 °C. Nickel-based catalysts are often used because they can withstand such heat, but they lose performance over time as particles clump together, reducing surface area and efficiency. Operating at lower temperatures avoids this problem, but it also leads to the formation of unwanted by-products such as methane, lowering carbon monoxide output. To make the process more efficient and affordable, researchers have been searching for catalysts which remain highly active under low-temperature conditions. The KIER team succeeded by developing a new copper-based catalyst which delivers outstanding results at just 400 °C. Through real-time analysis, the researchers found that their catalyst bypasses the normal step of forming intermediate compounds. Instead, it directly converts CO2 into CO on the catalyst surface, which is why it maintains its high activity even at the relatively low temperature of 400 °C.

At 400 °C, the catalyst achieved a carbon monoxide yield of 33.4% and a formation rate of 223.7 micromoles per gram of catalyst per second (μmol·gcat⁻¹·s⁻¹), maintaining stability for over 100 continuous hours. These results represent a 1.7-fold higher formation rate and a 1.5-fold higher yield than standard copper catalysts. It is among the top-performing CO2 conversion catalysts in the world. The performance metrics of the new catalyst are ground breaking. Moreover, it outperformed noble metal catalysts like platinum by a factor of 2.2 in formation rate and 1.8 in yield, establishing it as one of the world’s best-performing catalysts for this reaction. The newly engineered copper-magnesium-iron mixed oxide catalyst outperformed commercial copper catalysts, producing carbon monoxide 1.7 times faster and with a 1.5 times higher yield at 400 °C. Copper catalysts have a key advantage over nickel: they can selectively produce only carbon monoxide at temperatures below 400 °C without forming methane. However, copper's thermal stability typically weakens near that temperature, leading to particle agglomeration and loss of activity.

To solve this challenge, Dr. Koo's team incorporated a layered double hydroxide (LDH) structure into their design. This layered structure contains thin metal sheets with water molecules and anions between them. By adjusting the ratio and type of metal ions, the researchers fine-tuned the catalyst's physical and chemical characteristics. Adding iron and magnesium helped fill the gaps between copper particles, effectively preventing clumping and improving heat resistance. Real-time infrared analysis and reaction testing revealed why the new catalyst performs so well. Conventional copper catalysts convert CO2 into carbon monoxide through intermediate compounds called formates. The new material, however, bypasses these intermediates entirely, converting CO2 directly into CO on its surface. Because it avoids side reactions which produces methane or other by-products, the catalyst maintains high activity even at a relatively low temperature of 400 °C. Dr. Koo hailed the low-temperature CO2 hydrogenation catalyst technology as a “breakthrough achievement” which enables efficient CO production using inexpensive, abundant materials. As CO is an essential precursor for syngas, which in turn is the building block for synthetic fuels like e-fuels for aviation and shipping, this discovery has immense potential for hard-to-decarbonise sectors.

"The low-temperature CO2 hydrogenation catalyst technology is a breakthrough achievement that enables the efficient production of carbon monoxide using inexpensive and abundant metals," said Dr. Kee Young Koo, the project's lead researcher. "It can be directly applied to the production of key feedstocks for sustainable synthetic fuels. Moving forward, we will continue our research to expand its application to real industrial settings, thereby contributing to the realization of carbon neutrality and the commercialization of sustainable synthetic fuel production technologies." The study was supported by the KIER's R&D project, 'Development of e-SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) production technology from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. E-Fuels are synthetic fuels produced by combining green hydrogen, generated with renewable electricity, and captured CO2 from the atmosphere or sustainable biomass. They are emerging as a promising alternative to conventional fossil fuels, especially for hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as aviation and shipping. The research findings were published in the high-impact journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental and Energy, signalling a major advance in the global effort to recycle CO2 and accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.

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