International.
A group of Chinese scientists, led by Qunwei Tang, is developing a graphene solar cell that is capable of generating energy with raindrops, in order to prevent photovoltaic cells from lowering their efficiency with rainwater.
The new solar cell, which carries a layer of graphene the thickness of an atom, is capable of obtaining renewable energy from raindrops.
They would be able to generate power on both sunny and rainy days. To achieve this, they have added a very thin layer of graphene as a coating for the solar panels. Graphene is a material that is very good conductor of electricity, it only needs a layer of one atom thick so that a large number of electrons can move on its surface. When it rains, the Lewis acid-base reaction occurs, which allows the generation of energy.
In the design and experimentation phase, it is still necessary to improve its efficiency whose performance is currently around 6.5%, far from the 22% of most current solar panels.
Source: http://ecoinventos.com
