Performance enhancement of nanotechnology based photovoltaic systems and supercapacitors

Abstract

It is nowadays becoming more important to employ renewable sources of energy to meet the energy demand worldwide. This is because the conventional sources for energy generation such as coal, natural gas and oil were said to contribute one third of the total greenhouse gas emission. The aim of our country is to attain 175 GW of energy form renewable resources, of which, 100 GW alone purely comes from solar energy, 60 GW from wind energy, 10 GW for biomass and 5 GW from small hydropower plants. Since solar energy contribute a major portion in generating consumable energy, several researches are being made to improve the efficiency of solar energy harvesting. Solar energy is being harvested by solar cells of which various types are available. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are of much interest newlinedue to their cost effective, insensitive to semiconductor defects, easy formation of semiconductor electrolyte interface and ability to understand the straight transmission of energy from photons to chemical energy. Also, the energy generated in such a way need to be stored for future use. So energy storage also comes into the field of research. Batteries and conventional capacitors are the primitive devices that had helped to store electrical energy. But these devices suffer from major drawbacks such as lower power density and energy density, fewer life cycles and higher charging newlinetimes. To overcome these disadvantages, a new device came into existence which have longer life cycle, more power as well as energy densities, less charging and more discharging times, less weight and eco-friendly in nature. newline