European Union’s funded project ManuCloud implemented the cloud architecture to manufacture the individual Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED)and organic solar cells.
By Sneha A.
Till date, both material and manufacturing of OLEDs and Solar energy have been expensive due to which these are not being widely used in consumer lighting. In order to increase the amount of energy produced than required, the solar cells have been manufactured. Photovoltaic material, which are very costly are being used to manufacture the solar cells. The only way to reduce the cost of the photovoltaic cells is to reduce its efficiency unless a way is found to use silicon to make the solar cells. Although the mass production of solar cells can help in reducing its cost, organic photovoltaic material also help in reducing the energy required to make organic solar cells. These have had a significant impact both on the cost and the environment of the technology.
What is OLED?
OLED is an organic LED that is made from the carbon based (organic) material, which emit light with the application of electricity. Unlike LCD displays, these do not require filters and backlight and so, are simple to make and much more efficient and thinner. So, the OLED technology is about having a good picture quality with bright colors, wide viewing angle and a fast response rate. Working with individual OLEDs can lead to the creation of customer focused or user defined products.
What are Organic Solar Cells?
Organic solar cells use organic photovoltaic material, the small organic material that can absorb light and produce electricity from sunlight by charging the transports. Organic solar cells are cost effective for the photovoltaic applications. These have large optical absorption coefficient so, can absorb large amount of light with small amount of material. These cells being organic are devoid of toxic material and are also cost effective. The OPV technology used in the organic solar cells allow them to have better performance in low light, to have greater flexibility and low weight and to be colorful and transparent.
Contribution of ManuCloud
ManuCloud is a project funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program. It is a distributed Cloud product specification and supply chain manufacturing execution infrastructure. Its mission is to investigate the IT related production aspects of transition and to develop and evaluate a suitable IT infrastructure that can provide a better support for on demand scenarios related to manufacturing, taking into account the multiple steps of value chain, in order to bring them down to shop floor level. Using this cloud based concept, users can utilize the manufacturing capabilities of virtual production networks that are configurable and can be supported by a set of software as the service applications. The ManuCloud project partners Heliatek, Fraunhofer COMEDD, Tridonic Dresden and GSS Gebaude-Solarsysteme GmbH presented a demonstrator of a facade module, which combines the OLED and OPV technology. Both of these technologies have certain specific market needs and are in their early stages, however, these have a multi billion dollar market prediction. A process was developed by the members of this project to integrate temperature and pressure sensitive OPV and OLED devices into glass in order to create an integrated active glass laminate.
| Advantages of combining the OPV and OLED technology |
| • New mobile technologies are possible • Properties like adjustable colors, light weight and thin structure with good transparency can be combined with energy harvesting and light generation • Products can be user focused and economical • Organic and large area electronic technologies can be easily implemented • Low temperature • Roll-to-roll vacuum process • Large field of view with less power consumption |
Cloud concept provides easy access to these technologies to the manufacturers for implementation and manufacturing of a device.
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