Photovoltaic Project

This page is designed to assist and guide new students who will carry on the Nanotechnologies for Photovoltaic Electricity Generation project's Computer Science related parts.

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Nanotechnologies for Photovoltaic Electricity Generation - Senior Design Project is an NSF-funded project carried out by Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science departments at SUNY-Binghamton. The project is supervised by Professor Alok Rastogi and Professor Collin Selleck from Mechanical Engineering department and supported by Professor Richard Steflik from Computer Science department. Arpit Mehta, Michael King and Tony Lin from Mechanical Engineering; and Serdar Mercan from Computer Science departments worked on the project through out the 2008-2009 academic year at SUNY-Binghamton.

Project

The project focuses on advancing in the following areas:

• Use nanotechnology methods to create unique ensemble of nano semiconductors thin film layers and nanostructures
• Demonstration of potential of nanotechnology in developing new materials, forming thin film photoactive solar cell device components
• Complement these investigations for energy conversion by fabricating prototype solar cells

Website

The URL for the website for the project is: http://steflikk6.cs.binghamton.edu/~nano/photovoltaics/index.html

Content

The website includes various information on the project. There is a flash movie clip on the Home page and on the Project page. The flash movie on the Animation page is the one we used for the project presentation at the end of the semester. Project documents and a Google SketchUp animation can be accessed from the website.

The site-map is as follows:

-Home
 -Documents
 -Animation
 -Project
 -Contact Us

Development

The website was developed using Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. A CSS Style Sheet was used to align each content on the website to avoid alignment faults observed in different web browsers. A web page template was used to display the web content. The flash movie clips on the website was created using Flash Slideshow Maker software. It's a really useful tool to create flash movies without too much programming effort.

How to Update

All web content including .swf files for flash movies can be obtained from Prof. Dick Steflik's FTP server at ftp://steflikk6.cs.binghamton.edu. You can use a software such as FileZilla to access the FTP server. The authentication information for the server can be requested from Prof. Dick Steflik and you can download FileZilla at http://filezilla-project.org/ for free.

Animation

Content

Basically, the animation has the following three parts:

First Slide

In the first slide, you can observe the light source, the cell -which consists of two conductive glass plates-, and the load, which represents the consumption of the electricity generated by the system. There is a reaction occurring inside the glass plates. You can see the detailed reaction by clicking the lighting rectangle.

Second Slide

The key part of the system is shown in the second slide, which is the Energy Conversion. In the upper part, the light goes through the top glass plate and then it is absorbed level by level depending on the wavelength. Blue light is absorbed at the top, then is the green light, and at the bottom comes the red light.

When the light hits the dye (the upper half of the inner cell) the electrons are excited and have high energies. When the electrons are excited, they move through the titanium dioxide and pass to the upper conductive glass plate. Then they move through the conductive wire and start the circulation.

To replace the electrons which are excited, we use an electrolyte solution which is made up of iodine ethylene glycol. The electrons in the electrolyte have lower energies and they move up to return the electrons that the dye needs.

Again, to replace the electrons in the electrolyte which move upwards into the dye, we use a carbon backing right above the lower conductive glass plate. When the high energy electrons move through the system, they lose their energy in the process and return to the lower conductive glass plate. To complete the circuit, carbon backing help them pass to the electrolyte solution.

When you click the lighting rectangle inside the cell, you can see the detailed electron movements through the titanium dioxide.

Third Slide

In this slide, you can see the high energy electrons move through the titanium dioxide. When the light hits the dye, the electrons are excited and have high energies. When the electrons are excited, they move through the titanium dioxide to pass to the top glass plate.

Development

The flash animation is developed using Macromedia Flash Professional 8. The names of the classes used to create the animation are as follows:

• arrow : represents the arrow that rotates to animate the current flow through the load in the second slide
• border : represents the thick line that seperates the upper and lower parts of the inner cell (dye and electrolyte)
• circle : represents the arrow-circle between idodide and triodide
• conversion : represents the lighting rectangle inside the dye
• current : represents the arrow that rotates to animate the current flow through the load in the first slide
• dye : represents the upper half of the inner cell
• dyeSpot : represents the lighting dye spots inside the dye
• electrolyte : represents the lower half of the inner cell
• electron : represents an electron sphere
• electronGroup : represents the seven consecutive electrons sliding through the conductive glasses.
• electronTop : represents the seven consecutive electrons lighting and sliding through the conductive glass at the top.
• iodide : represents the lighting 3I^- text
• light : represents the blurry light going through the top glass plate
• Next : represents the Next text button
• Previous : represents the Previous text button
• topArrow : represents the arrow at the top of the load
• topCell : represents the top glass plate
• topElectron : represents the electron moving through the conductive wire on the load
• triodide : represents the lighting I₃^- text

Code Samples

• A sample code to process the width and the position of the blurry light object. The code changes the color of the light to Blue, Green or Red depenging on its Y position after it goes through the glass plate. The else statement sets the object to its initial position to have it move recursively.

onClipEvent (enterFrame)
{
    color = new Color(this);
    xPos = getProperty(this, _x);
    yPos = getProperty(this, _y);
    w = getProperty(this, _width);
    
    if (yPos<150)
    {
         if(yPos>=95 && yPos<108)
              color.setRGB(0x0000FF);
         else if(yPos>=108 && yPos<134)
              color.setRGB(0x00FF00);
         else if(yPos>=134)
              color.setRGB(0xFF0000);
         else if(yPos==30)
              color.setRGB(0xFFFF99);
         setProperty(this, _y, yPos+1);
         setProperty(this, _width, w+1);
    } 
    else 
    {
         setProperty(this, _y, 30);
         setProperty(this, _width, 30);
    }
}

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• Another sample code that shows the rotation of the arrow which represents the flow of current. It uses the height of the light object as the reference point.

onClipEvent (enterFrame)
{
    i = getProperty(this, _rotation);
    h = getProperty(_level0.light1, _y);
    if(h % 9 < 1)
    {
         setProperty(this, _rotation, i+180);
    }
}

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• This code is used to move a dyeSpot object to move upwards and change its color at the same time.

onClipEvent (enterFrame)
{
    color = new Color(this);
    y = getProperty(this, _y);
    
    if (y<100)
    {
         setProperty(this, _y, y+44);
         color.setRGB(0x00CC66);
    } 
    else
    {
         setProperty(this, _y, y-1);
         color.setRGB(color.getRGB() - 0x111111);
    }
}

Google SketchUp

The model can be found on the website as well. Google SketchUp is a very handy program to use for 3D modeling becuase you can convert the .skp file types to VRML or X3D to upload it to your website afterwards. The tricky part of the model is the animation. It is not worth using Google SketchUp for any of occasions related to animation. Since the only animation option is to go through every scene in the model, you have to change every scene one by one assuming that the passing to the next scene will be smooth enough.

I created the model by myself except the light source. You can find so many models online which was what I did for the light source. Lamb.

Flash in MS PowerPoint

• Step 1. Click on the Windows icon on the top and click on PowerPoint Options.
• Step 2. Make sure the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon is checked.
• Step 3. Click on the Developer tab and then click on the More Controls in the Controls pane.
• Step 4. Then add a Shockwave Flash Object in the slide.
• Step 5. Right click on the object and select Properties.
• Step 6. In the Properties window, go to Movie property and set it to your flash file name ending with .swf
• Step 7. While opening the slide show, make sure your flash file is in the same directory as your .ppt file.