Solar energy harvesting with the application of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is an enabling technology that provides an extensive range of resources to resolve the energy-related problems, as the developing components and appliances are smaller than 100 nm they provide the new ways to catch, store and exchange energy. Every day, the sun shines a huge amount of energy which is generated through a process of nuclear fusion. Even the sun radiates more energy in one second than people have practiced since the beginning of time. It has been noted that the technical potential of solar energy all over the world is many times larger than the current total primary energy demanded. In this study, the solar harvesting technology with the help of nano-materials has been thoroughly studied. The different types of modern solar collecting technologies that use the nanomaterials effectively and successfully have been discussed. Among a number of devices, the solar collector, the fuel cell, photocatalysis and solar photovoltaic have used the nanomaterials to increase the efficiency. It is found that by using nanomaterials the incident radiation can be increased by 9 times while the efficiency of the solar collector is 10% higher compared to that of a conventional flat plate solar collector. The generation ways solar cell technologies have been also discussed here. At the end of this article, few challenges in using nanotechnology are also addressed in detail. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.