**9. References**

204 Solar Cells – New Aspects and Solutions

The facultative anaerobic mixotrophs assimilate heterotrophically organic compounds contained in the wastewater into the structural compounds of bacterial cells under oxidation condition but autotrophically carbon dioxide into the biomass under condition with high balance of biochemical reducing power (NADH/NAD+). DC electricity generated from the solar cells can be transferred very conveniently to the cylinder-type electrochemical bioreactor without conversion, which is the energy source for increase of biochemical reducing power balance. A part of the atmospheric carbon dioxide has been generated from the combustion system of fossil fuel, which may be required to be return to the empty petroleum well. To store the bacterial cells in the empty petroleum well is to return the carbon dioxide generated from petroleum combustion to the original place. The peptidoglycans, phospholipids, proteins, and nucleic acids that are major ingredients of bacterial cell structures are stable chemically to be stored in the empty petroleum well owing to the non-oxygenic condition. Conclusively, what the atmospheric carbon dioxide originated from the petroleum and coal is returned to the original place again may be best

The atmospheric carbon dioxide originated from petroleum and coal is required to be completely isolated from the ecological material cycles. The carbons in the ecological system are accumulated as the organic compounds in the organisms and as the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is cycled via the photosynthesis and respiration, especially, plants are the biggest pool for carbon storage. However, the forest and plant-habitable area has

The cultivation of cyanobacteria and single cell algae with solar energy may be the best way to isolated effectively carbon dioxide from atmosphere but is possible in the water pool-type reactor located in the plant-habitable area. In other words, the forests or grass lands may be replaced by the water pools, by which the effect of carbon dioxide fixation has to be decreased. The cyanobacteria and algae can be cultivated in the bioreactor using lamp light operated with electric energy that is generated from solar cells, for which the solar energy has to be converted to electric energy and then converted again to the light energy. These phototrophic microorganisms have been studied actively and applied to produce nutrient sources and pharmacy. The goal for cultivation of the phototrophic microorganisms is to produce the utilizable materials but not to fix carbon dioxide like the

The carbon compounds of the organic nutritional compounds contained in the sewage wastewater are the potential carbon dioxide, which may be the useful medium for cultivation of the mixotrophic bacteria capable of fixing carbon dioxide. The maximal balance of anabolism to catabolism is theoretically 0.4 to 0.6 in the mixotrophic bacteria growing with organic carbons as the energy source, in which the carbon dioxide can't be the source for both anabolism and catabolism; however, the balance can be changed by the external energy like the electrochemical reducing power. In the condition with both the organic carbons and the electrochemical reducing power as the energy source, the balance of anabolism to catabolism may be increased to be higher than 0.4 due to the carbon dioxide assimilation that is generated in coupling with the redox reaction of

way to decrease the greenhouse effect.

been decreased continuously by human activities.

**7. Conclusion** 

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**0**

**10**

*Poland*

**Semiconductor Superlattice-Based**

Michal Mruczkiewicz, Jarosław W. Kłos and Maciej Krawczyk

The efficiency of conversion of the energy of photons into electric power is an important parameter of solar cells. Together with production costs, it will determine the demand for the photovoltaic device and its potential use (Messenger & Ventre, 2004). The design of artificial nanostructures with suitably adjusted properties allows to increase the performance of solar cells. The proposed concepts include, among others, third-generation devices such as tandem cells, hot carrier cells, impurity photovoltaic and intermediate-band cells (Green, 2003). In this chapter we discuss the theoretical model of intermediate-band solar cell (IBSC), the numerical methods of determining the band structure of heterostructures, and the latest reported experimental activities. We calculate the efficiency of IBSCs based on semiconductor superlattices. The detailed balance efficiency is studied versus structural and material parameters. By adjusting these parameters we tailor the band structure to optimize

The background of the concept of IBSC lies in the impurity solar cell concept proposed by (Wolf, 1960) and presented in Fig. 1. The idea was to increase the efficiency by the introduction of intermediate states within a forbidden gap of the semiconductor. This allows the absorption of low-energy photons and causes them to contribute to the generated photocurrent via two-photon absorption. However, as shown experimentally by (Guettler & Queisser, 1970), the introduction of intermediate levels via impurities will create non-radiative recombination centers and cause a degradation of the solar cell efficiency. This effect was studied theoretically by (Würfel, 1993) and (Keevers & Green, 1994), with the conclusion that the introduced impurity levels can increase the efficiency in some cases, but only marginally. However the research in this field is still active and recently the optical transition between CB and IB band

in the GaN*x*As1−*<sup>x</sup>* alloys was proved experimentally (López et al., 2011; Luque, 2011). Another, more sophisticated approach to the concept of impurity solar cell was proposed by (Barnham & Duggan, 1990). A further discussion in (Araujo & Martí, 1995), (Luque & Martí, 2001), (Martí et al., 2006) led to the conclusion that the problems related to the impurity states in the solar cell concept might be overcome if the impurities interacted strongly enough to form an impurity band (IB). In such conditions the electron wave functions in the IB are delocalized, causing the radiative recombinations to predominate over the non-radiative ones. The efficiency of the system was described by (Luque & Martí, 1997) on the basis of the extended Shockly-Queisser model (Shockley & Queisser, 1961), the most commonly used

**1. Introduction**

the efficiency.

**Intermediate-Band Solar Cells**

*Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna ´n*

