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Registered Member #543
Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992
Conundrum wrote ...
Hi all.
Seems that electroplating can be used to make copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells.
the basic idea seems to be to electroplate the base ITO (or zinc oxide) with the metals then expose it to selenium vapour to form the active layer(s)
sound possible? (Yes I am aware that selenium is somewhat toxic..)
seems that most of the metals are easy to get hold of, selenium can be obtained from old broken toner cartridges...
-A
Is there some reason for not using non-indium tin conductive glass in this process? I find that a fairly reliable layer can be created by first spraying the very clean glass (microscope slides in my case) with a solution of tin (II) chloride doped with a tiny amount of surfactant from an atomizer, slowly heating it to drive off water, and then raising the temperature to ~ 750 Celsius plus to create the oxide and fuse it with the glass.
I suppose I could send you a doggy bag with some SnCl2 and Se powder in it, if you have the other ingredients and want to give it a go. (oops, and plus the ZnS you asked me for last week )
While you're at it, why not make a Grätzel solar cell using tin oxide glass and titanium dioxide with blackberry juice? Sciencegeekgirl has a simple DIY blackberry juice solar cell .pdf on her site, but there are plenty of more theoretical papers on the web - the Great Unpublished PhD Theses of The World kind of thing.
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Homemade CIGS cells?
)