Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:55 pm Post subject: Solargenix Energy & Spheral Solar Power
...The basis of the company is the non-imaging optics technology licensed from the University of Chicago. Solargenix has exclusive worldwide licenses and rights to develop and market the technology for all solar applications.
Invented and developed by Roland Winston when he was a physics professor at the University of Chicago, the technology uses an innovative optical surface called a compound parabolic concentrator to concentrate light more intensively than traditional optics. In some applications, this technology has proven the capability to concentrate sunlight up to 84,000 times the natural level of sunlight at Earth's surface. This exceeds the intensity of the surface of the sun by 15 percent.
Non-imaging optics serve as light funnels that collect and intensify radiation far better than do lenses and mirrors, Winston said. Lenses and mirrors produce almost perfect images at the focal point, but they blur and broaden the images away from the focus, he said.
The technology has another advantage. It collects light from much of the sky, so it requires no moving parts to track the sun. Similarly, the technology also is used to enhance tracking solar collection systems. Conventional solar arrays must move over a range of 60 degrees from winter to summer in order to collect direct radiation from the sun.
The new Solargenix operation has already begun manufacturing the compound parabolic concentrators. "Most collectors that we sell in the U.S. will be coming out of Chicago for now," said Jeff Myles, Solargenix director of legal and administration. ...
Spheral Solar of Cambridge, Ontario, which acquired patents on the
concept in 1997. Spokesman Milfred Hammerbacher expects the
company to start making its flexible panels next year.
Recycling silicon
The manufacturing process uses waste silicon from the chip-making
industry, which is melted down and shaped into spheres about one
millimetre across. Next, the cores of the silicon spheres are doped
with boron atoms, which turn it into a "p-type" (positive)
semiconductor. Then phosphorus atoms are diffused into the outer
layer of the beads, converting it into a negative "n-type"
material.
Spare electrons in the n-type material flow into holes in the
p-type - which establishes an electric field across the p-n
junction. This field pulls apart the electron and hole produced
when a photon of light is absorbed by the silicon. These charges
then flow through an external circuit via the aluminium contacts,
creating a current.
The arrays are simple to make. The spheres are dropped into a
perforated aluminium sheet, which makes contact with the n-type
material on the surface. Some of the exposed n-type surface is
then etched away to reveal the p-type core, and a second aluminium
sheet is applied - making electrical contact with the p-type core.
Both surfaces are then sealed with a plastic sheet.
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