New materials should make solar energy a lot cheaper and more effective

That's what a Swiss-Quebequois team has discovered recently: that the costly, ineffective and corrosive electrolytes used to date could be replaced by a new transparent organic material. In turn the costly platinum cathodes can be replaced by a much cheaper one made of cobalt sulphide.

Read more at Science Daily.

References:

Mingkui Wang et al., An organic redox electrolyte to rival triiodide/iodide in dye-sensitized solar cells. Nature 2010. Pay per view.

Mingui Wang et al., CoS Supersedes Pt as Efficient Electrocatalyst for Triiodide Reduction in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2009. Pay per view.