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If you’ve attended school sometime since the 1970s, you’ve probably done your math equations on a solar-powered calculator. Long before the solar energy boom, many calculators were equipped with a strip of solar cells that exploited internal light to display multiplication and square roots. Dirty words upside down.
In the following decades, the focus shifted to large-scale outdoor solar panels that power homes or entire communities. Now, Ambient Photonics wants to bring indoor solar power to life: by powering small electronic devices via home lighting. It claims that switching to indoor solar power would be more environmentally friendly, given the carbon footprint of batteries and battery disposal.
[Image: Ambient]
But the solar cells of earlier calculators, known as amorphous silicon, didn’t have the ability to do anything else. To bring it back realistically, Ambient knew it had to dramatically improve performance. They turned to dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), a class of solar energy that has been around since 1988, but didn’t perform well in sunlight. On the contrary, it is very effective in indoor lighting. To address this problem, Ambient has created a patented formulation of “new molecules” to replace the active ingredients typical of DSSCs.
The resulting technology works with many small tools, namely anything that uses a coin cell or a double-, triple-, or nine-volt battery. “We can’t operate my MacBook, but we can operate the remote,” Marshall says. “We can operate the keyboard and mouse, but we cannot operate the monitor.”
The cells operate in any type of “ambient light,” light bulbs, or indirect sunlight that most people use in daily activities, which is sometimes very dim. “The sensitivity of our solar cell is so great that we have demonstrated that we can power a Bluetooth beacon using a candle,” says Marshall. But even if you’re watching a movie in the dark, the remote may still work. The cell can also store energy for use when there is no light, unlike a school calculator, which turns off once the cell bar is covered.
Aside from convenience, there are sustainability benefits. Although alkaline battery production has a smaller footprint than lithium-ion batteries, they still produce carbon. “Just because the batteries themselves are small doesn’t mean the problem exists,” Marshall says, adding that Ambient’s technology Emits 90% less carbon Compared to similar battery-powered products.
It also eliminates issues related to battery disposal. Every year, Americans throw up 3 billion batteries. It is classified as hazardous waste and is supposed to be transported to special drop-off sites, if possible Leach toxic metals Such as mercury and zinc in groundwater. “The dirty secret is that most of those batteries are thrown away,” Marshall says.
There is competition in the inner solar space. Based in Sweden exiger, Which he has Two Stockholm factories, has released products with its flexible plastic cells, including headphones in collaboration with Adidas. Ambient aims to launch its first products this year, including a computer keyboard, mouse and keyboard Remote control with Universal Electronics. It is also partnering with Google on an unnamed product, which was announced in CES this year commercial offer.
All Ambient products are produced in a fully automated factory in California, which opened in April last year. Marshall says manufacturing locally is especially important for the company at a time when 80% of outdoor solar is manufactured in China. The site is capable of producing tens of millions of cells annually; High volume is currently the key to cutting costs About $1 per cell.
Ultimately, Marshall says they don’t want these items to be niche, they want to make them the next generation of everyday products. “we [don’t] “I want to be a solar calculator,” he says. “we [want] To be the next energy source.
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