Researchers in China have shown that solar cells can keep generating electricity 10 metres below the surface of the sea, Euronews reports. The team, led by Wen-Hua Zhang of Yunnan University in Kunming, tested its panels in the South China Sea off the Weizhou Islands and published the results in the journal Joule.
Seawater quickly soaks up red light, so the group built perovskite cells tuned to the blue and green wavelengths that travel deepest. Two metres down, the cells produced 1,416 milliwatt-hours over two hours; at 10 metres they still delivered 324. In the lab they converted around 35 per cent of the light reaching them, and the team estimates they could run continuously at depth for about five and a half years.
That matters because underwater sensors, cameras and communications equipment currently depend on batteries that ships or divers must retrieve and replace. Zhang called the trial the “first functional validation” of solar cells working at such depths — a step towards ocean monitoring that powers itself.
Source: Euronews