Article 1: http://news.mit.edu/2015/cheap-flexible-solar-patrick-brown-0302

Article 2: https://www.popsci.com/article/science/turning-old-lead-batteries-new-solar-energy/?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=5&con=turning-old-lead-batteries-into-new-solar-energy%5C     

         The article “Make Solar Energy Economical” discusses the benefits as well as the importance of using solar energy. According to the article solar energy provides less than 1% of the world’s total energy but has the potential to provide much more. Compared to other energy sources solar energy is not only environmentally friendly and cost effective, it is also the most prevalent and abundant resource. Engineering and designing solar energy products are expensive and require material purity which is currently their biggest obstical towards making solar energy economical. The main challenge for solar to become more sustaiable than fossil fuels is the need to develop a more cost efficient and solar energy storage design.

         “Cheap Flexible Solar” by Denis Paiste addresses the economical cost of solar energy by offering higher efficiency quantum dot solar cells by tuning energy levels through surface chemistry as an alternative through MIT graduate student Patrick R. Brown’s work. Brown offers that Solar cells made out of lead sulfide quantum dots could not only offer a cheaper but a more flexible alternative using silicon, but by doing this they become much less efficient. Brown suggests altering the chemical composition of quantum-dot solar cells as a way of tuning them in order to reach higher efficiencies. 

          “Turning Old Lead Batteries Into New Solar Energy” by Emily Gertz suggests repurposing used old car batteries and using them to produce emmision-free energy. A team at MIT believes the use of recycled lead from used car batteries is not only cost effective and environmentally friendly, their research suggests it works just as well as fresh lead when used in solar cells made with “organolead halide perovskite film”, which is a compound that is now becoming competitive with silicon in  solar power technology.