PARC redesigns printers to produce solar panels, batteries

March 10, 2013

IDGNSA printed lithium ion battery. They say inspiration can come from the most unlikely places. For a scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center, the Xerox-owned lab in Silicon Valley best known as PARC, it came from a tube of toothpaste. The result is a new manufacturing method that can help make solar panels more efficient and increase the energy density of batteries. It began when the lab was looking at ways it could use existing Xerox technology, like printing, in other areas. While watching the way the two or three materials help shape each other when they are squeezed through a toothpaste tube nozzle, an engineer had one of those "a-ha" moments. By squeezing through a print nozzle a silver paste surrounded by a sacrificial material that would eventually get burned off, researchers found they were able to get a very fine silver line—and in electronics, any type of fine, conducting line is usually good. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030320/parc-redesigns-printers-to-produce-solar-panels-batteries.html#tk.rss_all