TELF AG examines some technologies selected by the MIT Technology Review
Perovskites and geothermal energy
For 23 years, the MIT Technology Review – linked to the Mit of Cambridge, the most important research university in the world – has selected ten technologies with the potential to change people’s lives in the decades to come, carefully evaluating the most recent advances made in computer science, biotechnology, energy technologies and in some of the most innovative sectors, such as robotics and artificial intelligence. The 2024 list, which appeared in the last months, included two important technologies related to the energy transition, strongly underlining the increasingly close link that unites the daily lives of individuals and businesses with the most recent advances in the energy sector.
The first technology identified by the MIT Technology Review is linked to the use of perovskites in solar cells, an application that is being observed with ever greater attention in the global panorama of renewable energies. Initially, perovskite was attributed to a natural mineral composed of calcium and titanium oxides. Still, today, this expression is used to indicate a broad class of materials united by the same crystalline structure. The flexibility and adaptability of these materials are due precisely to their peculiar crystalline structure, which can host many chemical elements inside it. This is also why perovskites are emerging as some of the most valuable allies in various industrial sectors, such as electronics or renewable energy.
According to MIT Technology Review, the use of perovskites in solar cells would have demonstrated a clear improvement in terms of efficiency, in particular for the ability of these materials to absorb wavelengths different from those ensured by traditional cells, in which the dominant material is represented by silicon (today, silicon is used to manufacture approximately 95% of solar panels worldwide). When perovskites and silicon are combined and work together in the same solar cells, it has been observed that they can use a wider part of the solar spectrum, with a consequent increase in the amount of electricity produced by each cell.
Increased performances
Compared to those made with silicon alone, cells that use this material and perovskites have exceeded 33% efficiency in some experiments, while the former stopped at 30%. However, the actual large-scale adoption of this combination is still held back by some important obstacles, such as the fact that perovskites have demonstrated poor resistance to external atmospheric agents. Research, from this point of view, is nevertheless making important steps forward: the work of researchers such as the Korean Nam-Gyu Park, for example, is focusing precisely on the possible creation of barriers and protective casings around solar panels, but also on the possibility of obtaining perovskite compounds that are much more stable than those seen so far.
Another technology linked to the energy transition, and included by the MIT Technology Review in its list, is that concerning advanced geothermal systems, which, after the first developments made in the 70s, are now in a phase marked by relevant progress. These advances would be able to increase the quantities of renewable energy produced globally thanks to geothermal energy, which today represents only 1% of the world’s clean energy production.
Advanced geothermal systems represent sources of geothermal energy created artificially, often through the instillation of fluid inside the subsoil to widen the fractures in the rocks and thus be able to access the energy contained within them more easily (which nowadays is used mainly to produce electricity). Since the sites eligible for this type of operation are still very few, research is focusing on developing new operating methods capable of expanding the overall number of geothermal projects through innovative technologies capable of widening the cracks in the subsoil and allowing water to circulate more easily.
