There was a time where alchemists dreamt of being able to transform lead into gold. Today, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a means to carrying out a metamorphosis much more interestingly thanks to recycling : transforming lead into solar panels. To do this, they used the metal contained in car batteries to make the photovoltaic cells. Something that has been far from being negotiable for the future, lead batteries in vehicles will be totally obsolete and won’t be the only use. Recycling this metal to make the photovoltaic cells can also allow the cost of solar panels to drop. Better still, according to estimates by the researchers at MIT, just one battery could sufficiently supply thirty homes. Knowing that recycled lead is effective as those which haven’t been used, and that the manufacturing process can be carried out at low temperature, the impact on the environment could be significantly less, than gold for our planet.

 
© Josep Borrut — Personal Work

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