RENEWABLE ENERGY

ZERO ENERGY, OFF GRID RESIDENTIAL HOMES

Our today’s social, technological and industrialized development is heavily dependent on the fossil fuels which are already on the brink of extinction. Other related issues are our inappropriate technology of using them as energy source which cause immense magnitude of green house gases and air pollution. To ensure sustainable human development, the concept of self sustained zero energy; off grid residential homes is gaining popularity in scientific and policy making circles.
The idea is to develop cost effective and sustainable insulating constructional panels for building architecture of the residential homes. And integrate the residential home with photovoltaic (PV) cells, water electrolyzer and fuel cell system. In principle, PV cells will energize the water electrolyser (water electrolyzer will be capable of using waste water) which generate hydrogen by splitting the water molecules. This hydrogen will be feed to fuel cell to generate electricity.

In this study, we are working on;
1)    Development of cost effect, earthquake proof insulated structural panels and joining method.
2)    Development and characterization of cost effective, low temperature efficient dye sensitized solar cells.
3)    Optimization of PV, electrolyzer and fuel cell integrated system.
4)    Development and characterization of bi-functional electrocatalysts to improve efficiency of water electrolyzer.

DEVELOPMENT and CHARACTERIZATION of LOW TEMPERATURE EFFICIENT DYE SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS

The technology of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) for low cost conversion of sun light into electricity is probably one of the few technologies which came to its maturity and commercialization in a very short span of time since its first introduction in 1991 by Gratzel. The concept of making these cells flexible is the priority to the date due to its remarkable market potential in portable electronic devices, easy fabrication and transportation.

In flexible technology, two types of substrates i.e. metallic and conducting plastic sheets have been used. Plastic substrates further provide cost effectiveness and light weight. Because of the low degradation temperatures of flexible plastic substrates (120 to 150^oC in case of ITO-PEN substrate) being used in the fabrication of photoanode for flexible DSSCs, their incident photon conversion efficiency (IPCE) is limited to 2 to 3%. The basic cause of low efficiency is high recombination reactions due to poor inter-particle connections between nanoparticle surfaces which hinder the transfer of electrons from the semiconductor network. This hindrance facilitates electrons to be picked up by either dye sensitizer and/or electrolyte and thus reduce the efficiency of the solar device. In our study, we attempt to improve the efficiency of flexible DSSC using various doping agents and other proven strategies.

Objectives:
1. Investigate the potential applications of concepts of neck formation and surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) in the field of DSSCs.
2. Investigate the effect of various doping and/or sintering agents on the efficiency of DSSCs.
3. Development of high efficiency cost effective, low temperature DSSCs
4. Economic analysis of DSSCs developed at relatively lower temperatures.