BioSolar's improved solar panel backsheet promises to lower the cost of making solar panels, while making that icon of green technology more environmentally friendly. And it's made from castor beans.
The company's BioBacksheet will, according to the company, "reduce cost by 50% over traditional [petroleum-based] backsheet materials." The description doesn't mention how much backsheet materials contribute to the overall cost of solar panels.
As the name implies, a solar cell's backsheet is the bottom layer of the panel. Thin-film solar panels do not use backsheets, but the more common c-Si panels do. See the diagram below for details.
In addition to being cheaper, the new technology is supposed to be greener by reducing the use of petroleum products. Made from biomaterials, the primary ingredient is "a cellulosic film combined with a highly water resistant and high dielectric strength nylon film made from castor beans."
On Monday BioSolar announced that that it plans to make BioBacksheet technology work with copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film modules. The company has also recently run successful tests with manufacturing samples from pre-production runs.
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