Photovoltaic cells provide clean, reversible electrical power from the sun. Made from semiconductors, they are durable, silent in operation and free of polluting emissions. In this book, experts from all sectors of the PV community — materials scientists, physicists, production engineers, economists and environmentalists — give their critical appraisals of where the technology is now and what its prospects are.

In this book, expert authors describe advanced solar photon conversion approaches that promise highly efficient photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical cells with sophisticated architectures on the one hand, and plastic photovoltaic coatings that are inexpensive enough to be disposable on the other. Their leitmotifs include light-induced exciton generation, junction architectures that lead to efficient exciton dissociation, and charge collection by percolation through mesoscale phases. Photocatalysis is closely related to photoelectrochemistry, and the fundamentals of both disciplines are...

Green plants and photosynthetic organisms are the Earth's natural photoconverters of solar energy. In future, biomass and bioenergy will become increasingly significant energy sources, making a contribution both to carbon dioxide abatement and to the security, diversity and sustainability of global energy supplies. In this book, experts provide a series of authoritative chapters on the intricate mechanisms of photosynthesis and the potential for using and improving photosynthetic organisms, plants and trees to sequester carbon dioxide and to provide fuel and useful chemicals for the benefit...