{"id":74614,"date":"2017-12-18T13:47:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/using-nanotechnology-not-water-to-clean-solar-panels"},"modified":"2017-12-18T13:47:03","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:47:03","slug":"using-nanotechnology-not-water-to-clean-solar-panels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/using-nanotechnology-not-water-to-clean-solar-panels","title":{"rendered":"Using Nanotechnology, not Water, to Clean Solar Panels"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Although solar panels might appear bright and shiny, in desert environments, where they are most frequently installed, layers of dust and other particles can quickly coat their surface. These coatings can affect the panels\u2019 ability to absorb sunlight and drastically reduce the conversion of the sun\u2019s rays into energy, making it necessary to periodically wash the panels with water. But often, in areas like Nevada, water resources are scarce.<\/p>\n

Consequently, NEXUS scientists have turned their attention toward developing technologies for waterless cleaning. NASA has already been using such techniques to wash panels in the lunar and Mars missions, but their developed methodologies prove too expensive for widespread public application. NEXUS scientist Biswajit Das of UNLV and his team are aiming to develop a water-free cleaning technology that will be cost-effective for large-scale photovoltaic generation, whereby they look to nanotechnology, rather than water, to clean the panels. \u201cOur mission is to develop a waterless, or at least a less-water cleaning technique to address the effect of dust on solar panels,\u201d Das says. \u201cOnce developed, this method will significantly reduce water use for the future PV generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Although solar panels might appear bright and shiny, in desert environments, where they are most frequently installed, layers of dust and other particles can quickly coat their surface. These coatings can affect the panels\u2019 ability to absorb sunlight and drastically reduce the conversion of the sun\u2019s rays into energy, making it necessary to periodically wash [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,48,1633,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology","category-particle-physics","category-solar-power","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74614","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\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}