Exeger
Assembly Line
What if You Never Had to Charge Your Gadgets Again?
After decades of trying, consumer electronics companies are rolling out a solar technology that mimics photosynthesis in plants. It lets devices charge indoors and, in some cases, can eliminate batteries entirely. This new tech is based on principles first explored by chemists in the 1960s and turned into workable solar cells in the 1980s. It’s taken until now for versions of these cells tough enough for consumer applications to be manufactured on the scale required for mainstream adoption.
Now, companies including Ambient Photonics and Exeger are offering solar cells of this kind, known as a “dye-sensitized solar cell.” They are lightweight, bendable, made from common materials, and can be manufactured cheaply, in a type of printing process. Sharp is also working on dye-sensitized solar cells, although its version is rigid, and made with the same equipment used to make LCD panels.