Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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I am not an expert but this is a summation of what I have understood from prior reading. It is unlikely to destroy any of the key solar players at all but over a small number of years will help the formation of new generations of solar panel that are more efficient and even better value for money. Probably not on its own but in conjunction with other materials, one option being in conjunction with silicon. Most high quality but not top quality panels are around 19 to 20 per cent efficient with topish end going toward mid twenties. I would guess this could give a lift to figures of mid and high twenties respectively within a few years.
I believe the Oxford co you refer to has a partnership to commercialise in 2021 and there are some other companies may start to sell even sooner.
numpty - Wikipedia hits the nail on the head:-
Perovskite is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate. Its name is also applied to the class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as CaTiO3, known as the perovskite structure.
The question of course is whether the reference you are referring to is referring to the specific mineral or the class of perovskite structures. In my opinion as someone who worked in the area of superconducting perovskite physics for about 5 years it is 99.625% the latter, as there's hundreds of different materials all with perovskite structures and it would be highly unlikely that it was the specific CaTiO3 material that shows the optimum solar cell properties, and it would be doubly unlikely that we only just found this out when CaTiO3 has been known about for 100+ years as compared with a synthetic 'designer' perovskite that we only just fabricated in the lab yesterday to try and specifically obtain good solar properties.
The easy way to find out is to google 'perovskite solar cell' - again Wikipedia comes up with useful concise information:- The name 'perovskite solar cell' is derived from the ABX3 crystal structure of the absorber materials, which is referred to as perovskite structure and where A and B are cations and X is an anion. A cations with radii between 1.60 Å and 2.50 Å were found to form perovskite structures [10]. The most commonly studied perovskite absorber is methylammonium lead trihalide (CH3NH3PbX3, where X is a halogen ion such as iodide, bromide or chloride) with an optical bandgap between ~1.55 and 2.3 eV depending on halide content. Formamidinium lead trihalide (H2NCHNH2PbX3) has also shown promise, with bandgaps between 1.48 and 2.2 eV.
So it's definitely not the specific Calcium Titanium Oxide compound that they are studying but rather Lead based compounds - but it's not yet a slam dunk as Wikipedia goes on to point out - In contrast to CdTe, hybrid perovskites are very unstable and easily degrade to rather soluble compounds of Pb or Sn with KSP=4.4×10-9, which significantly increases their potential bioavailability[68] and hazard for human health, as confirmed by recent toxicological studies.
Thus I doubt we are suddenly going to see the entire PV solar cell industry packing up their factories and going home, they are going to be going strong for 20 more years+ with the current mainly silicon absorber technology.
Thanks alfa and jogj99. I had a laser ablation once but the wheel fell off.
So is it a mineral In its own right or something created or a Combination of both. I have tried to research it but you are a much more reliable and knowledgeable source than google.
And, forgive me for impossing, are the stories true about its effectiveness?
You beat me to it Alfa :-)
perovskite is a class of layered crystal structures - eg the cuprate (HTc) superconductors. There is not going to be any specific place where it would be mined and used in a solar panel device, it would likely be created by reacting high purity oxides via a solid state sintering process and if you really, really have to have it in thin film form then via electron sputtering or laser ablation.
I read up on this awhile ago oxford company I think putting a layer on top increases efficiency
Numpty. This is mined at the Sandsloot mine in Mokopane, just down the road from the planned BMN mine, it’s quite likely we have some of this as well.
Could any of you more knowledgeable (pretty much all of you) than me offer an opinion on this? Read a report that says it could dramatically increase the efficiency of solar panels. Would really appreciate your view Alfa.