It was his invention of third-generation, low-cost, dye-sensitised solar cells that brought professor Michael Grätzel from Switzerland the Technology Academy Finland award this June.
With its Millennium Technology Prize, the academy, in partnership with Finnish organisations, industry and the state, contributes to promoting and developing innovations that are expected to have a positive impact on the quality of life and environment.
The grand prize of 800 000 euro will help to accelerate such research, so that the benefit of the promising invention for cheaper solar energy will be able to be seen as soon as possible.
The “Grätzel cells”, named after the inventor, could help in avoiding upcoming energy crises and play a significant role in developing new renewable energy technologies.
Photo:electricbrave.worldpress.com
How nature keep its balance and uses natural elements has been an inspiration to many scientist. For Grätzel, photosynthesis was this staring point, which is why his technology is often described as “artificial photosynthesis”.Unlike silicon cells, which have to separate positively charged carriers from negatively charged ones, and for that need a positively doped and negatively doped layer of almost 100 per cent pure silicon, the dye-sensitised solar cells generate charges by dye molecules, and the process of separation is close to what photosynthesis does in green leaves, Grätzel explained in The Guardian.
This makes Grätzel cells cheaper than the conventional ones, and very environmentally friendly, without any energy-intensive, high-vacuum methods or toxic elements in their production.
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