Hydrogel boosts power of self-cooling solar panels
Material that sucks water from air increases solar cells’ performance by up to 19%
A team around Peng Wang at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China, has developed solar panels that use hydrogels to keep cool. ‘With our design, we could effectively increase the electricity generation of a photovoltaic panel by 13 to 19%,’ says Wang. ‘This was possible because we could lower the panel’s temperature by at least 10°C.’