Special Solar Cell Inventor Wins Millennium Technology Prize
Every other year, Finland's Technology Academy awards the Millennium Technology Prize to an individual who, according to their website, "assist[s] and enrich[es] our everyday lives today as well as in the future" with their invention. It is the largest technology prize in the world, and is presented to the recipient by the President of Finland.
This year's winner is Michael Gratzel, a German-born chemist who works at the esteemed Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland. His contribution to the people of the world? Specialized solar cells that mimic the process of photosynthesis. Aside from the process by which they harvest the sun's rays to generate electricity, they are also very light and thin, such that they can be used for electricity-generating windows or mobile solar cells.
Using cells that are so small that they don't scatter light, the specialized solar cells can gather solar energy from all sides. On top of all of their benefits, the cells can be made using dye from berries, drastically decreasing their overall cost. They have already found use in some products, such as battery-charging backpacks, but Gratzel envisions a world where the skyscrapers of the world all use these special windows to generate green power.
Gratzel says that he will use the $960,000 prize to invest in more research.
Source: Gizmodo
