On Jun 29, 2009, at 3:08 PM, Rick Monteverde wrote:
Algae again - diatoms have been tried with some success. Stuck to the
conductive substrate, they are coated with a layer of titanium
dioxide.
Photons ping around in the fancy geometric nanostructures for
increased hits
on the dye-sensitized stuff thereby knocking loose more electrons, or
something like that.
http://tinyurl.com/msnat6
Titanium dioxide itself is a semi-conductor. There are also a great
many ways to pacify the surface of titanium:
http://www.finishing.com/1200-1399/1265.shtml
http://www.electrohio.com/Finishing/TiAnodizing/TiAnodizing.htm
The resulting surface nano-structures produce differing colors,
including black.
All sorts of ordinary chemicals can be used, including TSP (trisodium
phosphate, a detergent).
Pacified titanium surfaces might be a great thing for amateur
development of solar cell material. It is also notable that Ti is CF
active, and Pd, Zr, and other potentially CF active metallic salts
are very effective at Ti surface pacification.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
