{"id":25137,"date":"2016-04-28T10:48:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/at-last-non-toxic-and-cheap-thin-film-solar-cells-for-zero-energy-buildings"},"modified":"2017-06-04T10:26:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T17:26:34","slug":"at-last-non-toxic-and-cheap-thin-film-solar-cells-for-zero-energy-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/at-last-non-toxic-and-cheap-thin-film-solar-cells-for-zero-energy-buildings","title":{"rendered":"At last: Non-toxic and cheap thin-film solar cells for \u2018zero-energy\u2019 buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/at-last-non-toxic-and-cheap-thin-film-solar-cells-for-zero-energy-buildings.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Zero-energy\u2019 buildings \u2014 which generate as much power as they consume \u2014 are now much closer after a team at Australia\u2019s University of New South Wales achieved the world\u2019s highest efficiency using flexible solar cells that are non-toxic and cheap to make.<\/p>\n<p>Until now, the promise of \u2018zero-energy\u2019 buildings been held back by two hurdles: the cost of the thin-film solar cells (used in fa\u00e7ades, roofs and windows), and the fact they\u2019re made from scarce, and highly toxic, materials.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s about to change: the UNSW team, led by Dr Xiaojing Hao of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at the UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, have achieved the world\u2019s highest efficiency rating for a full-sized thin-film solar cell using a competing thin-film technology, known as CZTS.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2016\/04\/160428103023.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook\">https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2016\/04\/160428103023.h...m=facebook<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Zero-energy\u2019 buildings \u2014 which generate as much power as they consume \u2014 are now much closer after a team at Australia\u2019s University of New South Wales achieved the world\u2019s highest efficiency using flexible solar cells that are non-toxic and cheap to make. Until now, the promise of \u2018zero-energy\u2019 buildings been held back by two hurdles: [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,1509,1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","category-entertainment","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25137"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61942,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25137\/revisions\/61942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}