Graphene could be used in creating solar cells, LCDs

Not to sound alarming or anything, but apparently, we've only got a decade or so before our planet runs clean out of indium. Thankfully for us, a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany are purportedly onto a replacement. For those in the dark, indium is a critical resource in "creating solar cells, LCD and other devices which must have transparent electrodes to carry out their function," but the aforementioned crew has seemingly been able to take graphene ("single layer 2D sheets extracted from the common material graphite") and build an acceptable alternative. The creation is 80-percent transparent to visible light and 100-percent transparent to infrared light, which could actually lead to solar cells capable of soaking up even more energy from more of the EM spectrum. 'Course, there's no telling how close this discovery is to being commercially viable, but we suppose we could always resurrect RPTVs and rely solely on wind farms for renewable energy if necessary, right?

[Via DailyTech, image courtesy of About]

[rento @ Dec 30th 2007 7:00AM]

Interesting.. I am sure Nanosolar thought about this one already

[Pingmeister @ Dec 30th 2007 9:20AM]

For what it's worth, Indium is also key to creating all LEDs.

With the insanely rising popularity of LEDs it would seem like a shortage of Indium would be of concern.

[macbirdie @ Dec 30th 2007 9:36AM]

Out of Indium in 10 years, huh?

Human beings are a desease, a cancer of this planet. A plague.

[Josh L @ Dec 30th 2007 10:09AM]

macbirdie, if you really think that, why don't you do everything a favor and off yourself?

[locke6854 @ Dec 30th 2007 10:16AM]

i could be wrong JoshL, but i think macbirdie was quoting

[Reader @ Dec 30th 2007 1:37PM]

Reading macbirdie's comment makes me think of the smug episode of South Park. Do you happen to smell your own farts too?

Obviously you're using a computer, which equates to use of electricity, and therefore coal burning. So you can't be all that better than us.

[ScooterDe @ Dec 30th 2007 4:56PM]

@locke6854
He was quoting Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999)

[macbirdie @ Jan 6th 2008 6:18AM]

Thank you, ScooterDe.

[mrsalty @ Dec 30th 2007 10:08AM]

"The abundance of indium in the earth’s crust is estimated to be 0.05 ppm for the continental and 0.072 ppm for the oceanic crust, respectively . This concentration is higher than the concentration of silver. Consider that silver is now produced at a rate of 20,000 tons per year compared to approximately 400 tons per year for indium. Silver is not perceived to be in short supply. These observations would suggest that indium could enjoy virtually infinite growth in use without supply limitations."

(Taylor and Mclennan 1985)

[facebookfake @ Dec 30th 2007 1:18PM]

Citing a source that is over 20 years old is useless.

[Josh L @ Dec 30th 2007 10:13AM]

Run out of iridium in 10 years? Is this like how people said 10 years ago that we would be out of oil by now? Or 20 years ago that we'd be in the middle of global cooling right now?

Forgive me if I take that with a grain of salt. Who is claiming this, anyway? Is it perhaps The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany?

[Josh L @ Dec 30th 2007 10:16AM]

**Indium. My mistake.

[Shnugi @ Dec 30th 2007 10:55AM]

They mean to say we will run out of [b]economically viable[/b] supplies of Indium, which means that Indium would either cost too much to extract or that Indium would cost too much to continue to be useful for industrial applications.

[thethirdmoose @ Dec 30th 2007 11:54AM]

It's not like the Max Planck institute is going to be selling this stuff

[Po @ Dec 30th 2007 12:03PM]

It's Forumer birthday.

[mrsalty @ Dec 30th 2007 12:32PM]

This is bull I would say that at least 50% of indium comes from recycled goods. They are just saying this because they just want to make a market for graphene now.

[facebookfake @ Dec 30th 2007 1:15PM]

I'm not sure how recently you tried to put up solar cells but I have read from numerous sources that by 2010 the price of solar will have decreased by 40% in Europe and California to about .12 KWh, which happens to be right down there with coal.

[chris schmidt @ Dec 30th 2007 1:22PM]

Indium is a byproduct of copper and zinc mining. Mining operations for copper and zinc just add extra processing to extract the indium. The concentration and value of indium are too low to make it economically viable to mine for the indium only.

So, anyone who thinks indium will run out in 10 years must also believe that zinc and copper will run out in the same time frame. Not likely.

Most likely what they were TRYING to say is that the demand for indium will far outstrip the supply in 10 years. (since the output of indium is directly tied to the output of copper and zinc, unless indium were to go up in value by 100x).

Not a big deal since the LCD industry uses 60% of all indium production right now and their growth rate is phenomenal, but they are very close to qualifying alternatives like aluminum-zinc-oxide for the TCO layer, at which point the demand for indium would drop significantly, only to pick up again as thin film solar (CIGS) replaces the demand.

[TechnoQ @ Dec 31st 2007 9:38AM]

Obviously there is going to be a new technology very soon,I presume.