Manufacturing Photovoltaic Cells from Alternative Materials

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but research in photovoltaic panels is extremely expensive and requires the use of highly toxic hazardous chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid to etch the glass panels and ammonium trifluoride to deposit extremely thin films of glass on the semiconductor surface . It's not something you are likely to be able to do on your own without financial backing from a government, major university or electronics company . However, if you're a billionaire with near limitless resources, I'm sure a couple of universities will be willing to hear from you for sponsorship .

Have fun trying anyway .

Dvader is right, this is not something you can do in your kitchen unless you are doing kitchen sink biology and are trying to come up with a synthetic version of chlorophyll or something. My kitchen sink biology experiments are usually accidental when the dirty dishes set too long....

Hi All:

FOR your information

A company in Michigan: ECD Ovonics is presently building an automatic manufacturing

line to roll out solar cell in the printing press style.

GOD'S BLESSINGS

Bill

P.S. I like Lindsay's books

Do look at this site: http://www.solideas.com/solrcell/howworks.html

And damn the critics! I am looking into this to do a start up myself. Forget the naysayers. Do the research and I hope I see your name as a discoverer of new and improved solar cells!

Be sure to look for the reasearch papers found in this article. They are here: http://www.solideas.com/solrcell/coatglas.html#articles

Good Luck!

I'm half way between Bill H and the "It can't be done's". Solar cells are a pretty high tech industry. But the world needs off the wall thinkers that ignore the standard way of thinking. The thing that I see is that you don't seem to have some new process in mind but are just wanting to get into a business that interests you. It sounds like you need someone that thinks outside the box, an inventor type. I myself am a backyard inventor, nothing in the photocell area, but I wish I could find someone that would help bring my ideas to life. So I'm sure there must be someone out there to match up with you.

If you are still interested after all of the negativity you've gotten, Subscribe to GlobalSpec's daily newsletters. They have news letters on all kinds of subjects. They are a wonderful resource. I keep up on everything from hydraulics, wind energy, electronics, solar, automotive, biotech even metallurgy and ceramics. I have rather diverse interests.

Good luck with your business and I hope to see you on a Global Spec newsletter.

Sorry if I made it sound like 'don't bother', it was not my intent.

The probability of success going down any un-tried path is always less, but it is typically the way that if success comes produces the greatest overall return.

Don't let me (or others) discourage any 'tilting at windmills', Lord knows I have done my fair share. But do understand the odds. I hate to see anyone go into a 'long odds' situation blindly. If you see a way to 'tilt the odds' in your favor, then GO FOR IT!

It could be my having beat my head against the wall for so hard for so long, I hate to suggest others do the same without them understanding what they are doing fully.

Take care, and best of luck! We are ALL pullling for you to win!