Solar panels made with tomato pigment get a boost in efficiency

Lycopene, which makes fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes red, improves the efficiency of perovskite solar cells

By Alex Wilkins

The chemical that makes tomatoes red could also improve the efficiency and stability of solar panels.

Most commercial solar cells are silicon-based, but a new generation of solar cells made from thin films of perovskite, a titanium and calcium crystal, promise greater efficiencies and are easier to work with. However, perovskites degrade far more quickly than silicon-based cells, so improvements in stability are highly sought after.

Donglei Zhou at Jilin University in Changchun, China, and his colleagues chose to add lycopene, a pigment found in tomatoes and other …