Imagine solar cells as thin as paper

At a design firm, paper plays an important part in our daily activities. We use it for sketches, notes, comps, and eventually beautiful printed pieces. We place a great value on the importance of paper and are very aware of the amount we use. Not to mention the importance of energy. Now imagine if paper had another use beyond being a scratch pad for our crazy doodles; imagine if it could fuel our computers, lights, and coffee machine as well!

Scientists at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have successfully coated paper with a solar cell. It’s all part of a suite of research projects aimed at energy breakthroughs. Think of an inkjet printer spitting out a report and then a solar paper to charge up your iPhone. Ok, that might be stretching it a bit, but still it’s a promising idea that could lower the weight of solar panels.

Here’s the current solar panel scenario with some very rough math: if you had a 60 watt solar panel to light up a room, all you would get would be one 60 watt lightbulb lit for an hour. That one solar panel would weigh 30 pounds (your average box of copy paper weighs 20 pounds). Imagine if a single sheet of solar paper could eventually do the same thing.

Unfortunately, this technology is still in the research phase and is years from making it into our homes. But it will be a great day when it does. What would you do with a solar cell on paper?

For more information on solar paper check out the article on cnet.