3D Nanotube Sollar Cell To Revolutionize The Solar Power Industry

Posted on 19 September 2008

William Yuan

A new 3D solar cell that would revolutionize the solar industry have been designed. The amazing thing about the news is that the inventor of the novel solar panel is a 12-year-old student from Beaverton, Oregon that believes his 3D solar cell will bring solar power to a higher place.

“A Highly-Efficient 3-Dimensional Nanotube Solar Cell” (that’s how William Yuan named his invention) is able to absorb up to 500 times more light than the nowadays conventional solar cells and up to 9 times more than the state-of-the-art 3D solar cells.

This is possible thanks to the carbon nanotubes, designed by the 7th grade student, that are making the light-electricity conversion two times more efficient and overcome the barriers of electron movement. The little genius made all this possible with his optimized design  that also includes a computer program and solar towers designs.

The invention brought the 12-Yer-old boy a $25,000 scholarship, but it will proove hard to gain investment because of his age. Anyhow, Davidson Institute for Talent Development accepted him in their fellowship, and the young boy may be set for some awards in science and engineering.

This post was written by:

Liviu Anca - who has written 24 posts on Device Inn - Gadget Reviews.


9 Comments For This Post

  1. Bruce says:

    The article was a little light on substance however if this material has the efficiencies indicated in the article then finding funding/venture capital will not be hard. Buy stock in the kid.

  2. Patrick says:

    So what’s the news? It sounds more like “Kid takes already existing 3d solar cells, makes them bigger and better.”. How does he make it better? That’s the important part, you know, the how.

  3. Hobbit says:

    Someone else has already invented this… he is stealing.

  4. Voice of Reason says:

    >is able to absorb up to 500 times more light than the nowadays conventional solar cells

    I call BS. Current panels run 20% efficiency. I doubt you can gather 500x that amount. You may be able to double or triple it, but there is that 100% limit that you won’t be able to go past.

  5. Chris says:

    I wish to purchase a 51% stake of said kid.

  6. Professor says:

    Here are a few data points and links about the 3D Solar Cell, which was invented by Dr. Jud Ready of GA Tech in March 2005. See http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=13...

    The 3D Solar Cell has the potential to be breakthrough in the solar industry. The global and exclusive license to the 3D Solar Cell intellectual property is held by IP2BIZ in Atlanta http://www.ip2biz.com/Offerings/ProofCoProjects.a... The license is for sale to an firm that can further develop, manufacture and bring it to market.

    What is very interesting is if you look at the animation of Dr. Ready’s solar cell, at http://www-stage.gatech.edu/news-room/flash/CNTpv... you’ll notice that the graphics in the photo of this Oregon boy’s presentation are the spitting image of Dr. Ready’s.

  7. Professor says:

    Here are a few data points and links about the 3D Solar Cell, which was invented by Dr. Jud Ready of GA Tech in March 2005. See http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1337

    The 3D Solar Cell has the potential to be breakthrough in the solar industry. The global and exclusive license to the 3D Solar Cell intellectual property is held by IP2BIZ in Atlanta http://www.ip2biz.com/Offerings/ProofCoProjects.asp#ThreeDSolarCells The license is for sale to an firm that can further develop, manufacture and bring it to market.

    What is very interesting is if you look at the animation of Dr. Ready’s solar cell, at http://www-stage.gatech.edu/news-room/flash/CNTpv.html you’ll notice that the graphics in the photo of this Oregon boy’s presentation are the spitting image of Dr. Ready’s.

    Dr. Ready’s PCT patent application WO/2007/040594 was published in April 2007 at http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/fetch.jsp?LANG=ENG&DBSELECT=PCT&SERVER_TYPE=19-10&SORT=41238067-KEY&TYPE_FIELD=256&IDB=0&IDOC=1349795&C=10&ELEMENT_SET=B&RESULT=1&TOTAL=1&START=1&DISP=25&FORM=SEP-0/HITNUM,B-ENG,DP,MC,AN,PA,ABSUM-ENG&SEARCH_IA=US2006007290&QUERY=%28WO%2fwo2007040594%29+

  8. MIT says:

    http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/casestudy/3d-solar-cells-boost-efficiency

    Unfortunatly for the 12 year old boy but this was invented in 2007 by Georgia Tech who have had a working prototype since 2007.

    If I steal an invention off an article I found on the internet, can I get world wide press coverage for how brilliant I am too?

    I wouldn’t buy stock in the kid since they banned selling short this week.

  9. george says:

    A photo or diagram of this great 3d cell would be nice.
    No one has one!

    http://ikickgas.com

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