Magister Scientiae - MSc (Chemistry) / The increasing cost of fossil fuel energy production and its implication in environmental
pollution and climate change created high demand for alternative and renewable sources of
energy. This has led to great interest in research in the field of photovoltaic or solar cells Due to
the abundance of sunlight, the technology is sustainable, non-polluting and can be implemented
at places where power demand is needed, for example in rural areas. Solar cell devices that have
been commercialized are currently based on silicon technology, involving the use of
monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous silicon. Although they produce highly efficient
solar cells, the cost of Si solar cells is too high. Second generation solar cell materials such as
cadmium telluride and third generation materials such as perovskites and organic polymers have
been receiving much attention recently. However, they lack the efficiency of Si solar cells. This
research proposes the development of high energy conservation photovoltaic cells from novel
low-cost organosilicon polymers. The aim was to develop novel highly branched organosilane
polymers such as poly(3-hexythiophene), polydi(thien-2-yl)dimethylsilane, poly(3-hexyl-
[2,2'] bithiophenyl-5-yl)-dimethyl-thiophen-2yl-silane) as electron donors along with zinc oxide
nanorod as the electron acceptor which were able to bring the efficiency of the resultant
photovoltaic cell close to that of current Si solar cell. / 2021-08-31
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/6230 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Tyombo, Nolukholo |
| Contributors | Iwuoha, Emmanuel |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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