If I handed you a blackberry and claimed you that you could generate solar energy from it, would you believe me? What if I showed you that a group of middle-school students could obtain all the right materials to make their own dye-sensitized solar energy cells?
As a post-doctoral researcher at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) of the University of Chicago, Juliana Morbec can show just about anyone how to make a solar cell from a few simple things: blackberry juice, electrolytes, graphite from a pencil, and a white pigment-like paint that absorbs little light (made from a titanium oxide paste). At the “Juice from Juice” workshop held this past March sponsored by the National Science Foundation Center for Chemical Innovation for Solar Fuels, Juliana reached out to a group of middle schoolers to show them that science can be fun, engaging, and easy. For Juliana, science should be exciting. Despite the stigma that science is too complicated and overwhelming, Juliana used this hands-on experience to demonstrate to the students that science experimentation and research aren’t that difficult and don’t always require fancy equipment. In addition, with one or two female students in a room of 40 or more, Juliana urged the girls to explore and engage. As a role model, she showed the girls that, although engineering has been traditionally a male-dominated field, women can excel in this field as well.
With the high demand for energy and the detrimental consequences of using fossil fuels, a lot of efforts are devoted to find efficient, economical ways to harvest and store solar energy. Right now, the majority of solar panels we see are made of silicon, but due to its small band gap, its ability to absorb sufficient amount of solar energy is limited. Working under the guidance of Professor Giulia Galli at the University, Juliana and her team focus on developing alternative novel materials that are both affordable and efficient in harvesting solar energy.
After an unofficial survey on the use of solar energy, I found that many UChicago students believe harvesting solar energy is feasible and necessary. However, many students admitted that they’re only vaguely aware of all the potential benefits that solar energy can harness. Through programs like “Juice for Juice,” scientists at Pritzker Molecular Engineering and other departments have the opportunity to educate and inspire rising generations to change the world through science. Through science, as Juliana expressed, anyone is capable of changing a community and bringing improvement to the world. For any scientist, engineer, or researcher, it’s always exciting to make new discoveries and developing new solutions for a real world problem. For the scientists of tomorrow, all it takes is a little juice to inspire them to better solar energy technology for the future.