{"id":85289,"date":"2018-11-30T05:43:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T13:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/brilliant-iron-molecule-could-provide-cheaper-solar-energy"},"modified":"2018-11-30T05:43:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T13:43:09","slug":"brilliant-iron-molecule-could-provide-cheaper-solar-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/brilliant-iron-molecule-could-provide-cheaper-solar-energy","title":{"rendered":"Brilliant iron molecule could provide cheaper solar energy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/brilliant-iron-molecule-could-provide-cheaper-solar-energy2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time, researchers have succeeded in creating an iron molecule that can function both as a photocatalyst to produce fuel and in solar cells to produce electricity. The results indicate that the iron molecule could replace the more expensive and rarer metals used today.<\/p>\n<p>Some photocatalysts and <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/solar+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">solar cells<\/a> are based on a technology that involves <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/molecules\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">molecules<\/a> containing metals, known as <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/metal+complexes\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">metal complexes<\/a>. The task of the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/metal\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">metal<\/a> complexes in this context is to absorb solar rays and utilise their energy. The metals in these molecules pose a major problem, however, as they are rare and expensive metals, such as the noble metals ruthenium, osmium and iridium.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur results now show that by using advanced molecule design, it is possible to replace the rare metals with iron, which is common in the Earth\u2019s crust and therefore cheap,\u201d says Chemistry Professor Kenneth W\u00e4rnmark of Lund University in Sweden.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018-11-brilliant-iron-molecule-cheaper-solar.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018&#45;11-brilliant-iron-molecule-cheaper-solar.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, researchers have succeeded in creating an iron molecule that can function both as a photocatalyst to produce fuel and in solar cells to produce electricity. The results indicate that the iron molecule could replace the more expensive and rarer metals used today. Some photocatalysts and solar cells are based on a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85289","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\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}