Consortium of Universities Wins Competition of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education

17:28, June 4, 2024

Science teams will develop lightweight and flexible solar panels for space

Scientific teams from the Federal Research Center for Problems of Chemical Physics and Medical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ural Federal University, the Institute of Synthetic Polymer Materials of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics of the Higher School of Economics will develop systems for generating and storing energy in space. The consortium of scientific and educational institutions will receive research funding from the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education: the scientists have received a grant (100 million rubles per year) to carry out major scientific projects in 2024-2026.

“Under the leadership of Sergey Aldoshin, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the consortium's main task is to develop high efficiency and energy productivity solar batteries. The batteries will work in space conditions, so they must be light, flexible, resistant to radiation and low temperatures, and have a long life - at least 20 years in low-Earth orbits. Colleagues in Moscow will work to develop new materials and plastic-based perovskite modules, as well as batteries. Our task is to study the radiation resistance of both batteries and accumulators to different types of radiation. Once it is clear that we have succeeded in creating solar panels with the necessary properties, they will be tested in real conditions - on a small spacecraft in low Earth orbit”, says Ivan Zhidkov, head of the UrFU research team and head of the Laboratory of Photovoltaic Materials.

Physicists say the project is a breakthrough. Today, there is a boom in research to develop organic and perovskite solar cells for use in space. The problem is that this research is extremely complex and resource-intensive: it requires a lot of money, qualified specialists, and expensive equipment, including studying the performance of batteries and accumulators in space conditions.

“The work being done today usually studies one type of radiation - accelerated electrons, protons, neutrons, or gamma rays. I have not seen any published scientific papers that describe the effects of two or more damaging factors on the stability of organic or perovskite solar cells, so our work will be the first comprehensive study. We expect groundbreaking results that are far ahead of current global work”, states Ivan Zhidkov.

In addition to space, the new solar panels may also be useful on Earth: in areas of extreme cold (the Arctic and northern Russia in general) and hot climates, where, for example, modern batteries do not work, physicists add.

310 organizations applied for the competition of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 50 of which will receive financial support for conducting large-scale scientific research. The competition was held in eight areas - development of medicine, biotechnology, energy, new materials, information, and telecommunications technologies, including developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence. In 2020-2022, 41 large-scale scientific projects received financial support. In December 2022, the implementation of the first stage of these projects was completed. Based on the results of the review, 21 projects were prolonged for 2023.

Anna Marinovich

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office.
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