Ok, you must be thinking that it’s totally out of your mind…
Donuts and tea? Nah, it’s impossible and don’t try to fool us here! Well, for those who a big fan of adventure drama series, “MacGyver”, you have properly saw that he did used donuts and tea as the main ingredients in a Do-It-Yourself solar cell.
To be honest, the delicious little donuts contain everything you need to make a simple solar cell. Why? It is because the powdered sugar contains titanium dioxide nanoparticles. When this kind of powder is coated with an organic dye, just like the colorful chemical passion fruit tea. Hence, it is suitable to use as the light-absorbing layer of a photovoltaic device.
For your information, in dye-sensitized solar cells, most of the colored materials, such as tea or green tea absorb some visible light and transfer the energy to good electron transporting materials.
The best things about dye-sensitized solar cells are there are cheaper and more durable than the traditional photovoltaic. However, they are a little bit less efficient than photovoltaic. This problem can be overcome by extracting the titanium dioxide from donuts and apply it to the dye-sensitized solar cells. That is why; donuts and tea is a good match!
