Flexible, efficient solar-battery nano-textile

太阳能是清洁和丰富的;但它只提供了我们的能源使用的一小部分，主要是由于目前的制造和安装成本。这突出了对创新材料和工程解决方案的经济和环境需求，以便将太阳能收集设备低成本地集成到窗帘或服装等消费品中，以降低制造，安装和存储成本。这一战略项目的目标是开发关键的良性和高可用性纳米材料和制造技术，用于以柔性“清洁能源纺织品”的形式可扩展的高效聚合物太阳能电池和可充电电池的卷对卷（R2 R）制造。来自UBC的多学科研究人员团队在该领域具有专业知识，与三个国际机构（剑桥，WSU，Holst中心）和两家加拿大公司（MW Canada，NEW）合作，将协同处理这个研究项目。高效串联聚合物太阳能收集装置将由新型石墨烯/石墨烯柔性透明电极、电子和空穴选择性涂层、新型低带隙聚合物异质结和等离子体粒子集成开发。生物基柔性固态聚合物电解质，与石墨烯和石墨烯电极集成将被研究用于高容量，可充电和柔性锂离子电池的织物基板上。将开发用于在可拉伸和粗糙的纤维结构上印刷和层压开发的太阳能和电池设备的高精度工艺，并将展示原型太阳能电池纳米纺织品。这项工作有助于通过集成到日常消费产品中来大幅降低太阳能收集和存储设备的成本，并为纺织和印刷行业的增值产品开发战略技术，为加拿大带来重大的潜在利益。

Solar energy is clean and abundant; yet it only provides a tiny fraction of our energy usage mainly due to the current manufacturing and installation costs. This highlights an economical and environmental call for innovative materials and engineering solutions for low-cost integration of solar harvesting devices into consumer products such as window drapes or clothing with the aim to decrease manufacturing, installation and storage costs. This strategic project targets development of key benign and high availability nanomaterials and fabrication technologies for scalable roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing of high efficiency polymer solar cells and rechargeable batteries in form of flexible "clean energy textiles". A multidisciplinary team of researchers from UBC with demonstrated expertise in the field, in collaboration with three international institutions (Cambridge, WSU, Holst Centre) and two Canadian companies (MW Canada, NEW) will synergistically approach this research project. High efficiency tandem polymer solar harvesting devices will be developed integrated from novel graphene/nanofiber flexible transparent electrodes, electron- and hole- selective coatings, novel low bandgap polymer heterojunctions, and plasmonic particles. Bio-based flexible solid-state polymer electrolytes, integrated with graphene and nanofiber electrodes will be investigated for high capacity, rechargeable and flexible Li-ion batteries on fabric substrates. High precision processes for printing and lamination of developed solar and battery devices on stretchable and rough fibrous structure will be developed, and prototype solar-battery nano-textile will be demonstrated. This work contributes to dramatically lowering the cost of solar harvesting and storage devices by integration in daily-used consumer products and develops strategic technologies for value-added products for textile and printing industries with major potential benefits for Canada.