
Caffeine Cranks Up Solar Cells - jonbaer
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/solar/java-takes-the-jitters-out-of-solar-cells
======
Bartweiss
The big element missing from the headline: this isn't about improving existing
commercial solar cells.

The caffeine improvement is specific to perovskite-based solar cells, rather
than commercial-use silicon. Perovskite is expected to reach higher
efficiencies than silicon at far lower production costs, but isn't viable
because of rapid degradation and problems producing panels at scale. The good
news, though, is that caffeine's improvements work on exactly those problems,
raising defect-free crystal size and increasing panel longevity while in use.
And it's an absolutely massive increase: the lifespan gain is more than an
order of magnitude.

------
Cheyana
An old article, but apparently wine also helps them...

[https://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/Take-
Sunlig...](https://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/Take-Sunlight-Add-
Red-Wine-Get-More-Power-_21954)

Also superconductors...

[https://phys.org/news/2011-05-red-wine-clue-
superconductive-...](https://phys.org/news/2011-05-red-wine-clue-
superconductive-future.html)

~~~
lawlessone
>apparently wine also helps them

Just imaging what Buckfast would do!

~~~
onion2k
Not even Buckfast will make solar work in Scotland.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Maybe Irn Bru will do it?

------
russfink
Just how was this discovered? "Hey, no food or drink in the lab. DARN IT -
look what you did now!"

~~~
lm28469
That's how we ended up with microwave ovens.

> In 1945, the specific heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was
> accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer
> from Howland, Maine. Employed by Raytheon at the time, he noticed that
> microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a
> chocolate bar he had in his pocket.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Discovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Discovery)

~~~
gdubs
This is only barely related but when we bought our house the (ancient) gas
stove was malfunctioning. I looked up the brand (Modern Maid, I think) and was
very surprised to learn they were a subsidiary of Raytheon. The thought of a
gas appliance made by a weapons manufacturer was, a little unsettling.
Replaced that thing pretty quickly.

~~~
sl1ck731
I don't understand this. Were you afraid your stove was a weapon in disguise?

~~~
gdubs
No, it was a joke. I only know Raytheon as a weapons / explosives company. Had
no idea they had a consumer products arm at some point (unlike GE which at one
point owned everything including film studios, which is fairly common
knowledge.) Given that we were concerned we had a leaky gas appliance...

------
yeuxverte
The article compares caffeine vs. no-caffeine but I'd be interested to see how
caffeine compares to other additives. For all we know H2O could do the same
thing

~~~
djrogers
FTA: > UCLA professor Yang Yang’s lab chock-full of coffee drinkers spent
several years searching for a stability-enhancing additive to turn famously
unstable perovskite PV cells into a useful product. Then, on a lark, Yang's
graduate student Rui Wang suggested they try adding caffeine to the mix.

They tested different compounds for years before finding one that works - I
don' think it would add much to the article to list every one of them.

------
RenRav
So an immediate increase in the efficiency and significantly improved
longevity over time... doesn't this basically multiply the panels
effectiveness as time goes on? That's incredible this gain could come from
caffeine

~~~
edh649
I think improved longevity over time is relative to non-caffeinated solar
cells, caffeinated solar cells last longer (they don't improve over time)

~~~
Bartweiss
It looks like about a 13x longevity improvement over the tested timespan,
which is absolutely nuts.

It's specific to perovskite solar cells, though, which aren't in commercial
use because their lifespans are so short. They're one of the 'holy grail'
high-efficiency technologies like magnesium batteries, so a 13x increase in
lifespan is at once hugely important and not enough to make them realistic.

~~~
finnh
TFA doesn't show die-off, though. The graph just shows "after 1300 hours at
85C, still producing at 86% output". The slope doesn't imply a drop right
after (but of course who knows).

~~~
Bartweiss
Good point, thanks.

My assumption was that since the slope looks fairly flat, this was still a
nonstarter for most applications - 86% after 2 months is good progress, but
commercial standards are 80% after 20 years. Even so, it's a big step up from
the material's past of failing outright after short spans.

------
mises
This looks cool, but I am afraid it could drive up coffee prices. That would
be very sad.

~~~
vasili111
I think it will drive down the price of synthetic caffeine.

~~~
mises
Maybe, but that is only because synthetic caffeine is currently not very
competitive with the free caffeine produced as a by-product of decaf
manufacture. The price of existing naturally-derived caffeine (and possibly
the coffee from which it is derived) could rise, which is not a pleasant
thought.

