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05 June 2019 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Leonie Bolleurs
Lucas Erasmus and Prof Hendrik Swart
Lucas Erasmus and Prof Hendrik Swart (right) are working on a joint project with Ghent University to find an attractive solution to address the energy demands of buildings, electric motor vehicles, and mobile electronics.

With a constant increase in the price of electricity, any innovation to replace this necessity in our daily lives is welcome. 

The University of the Free State (UFS), whose vision is supported by an element of innovation, welcomes the recent agreement between its Department of Physics and Ghent University.

Attractive solution


Not only will this research – which aims to develop the materials necessary for transparent solar panels – enlarge the international research footprint of the UFS, but it is also an attractive solution to address the energy demands of buildings, electric motor vehicles, and mobile electronics without affecting their appearance.

According to Prof Hendrik Swart, from the UFS Department of Physics, the agreement between the two universities entails a joint doctoral degree in which both universities will supervise the project and the awarding of the doctorate. The student, Lucas Erasmus, will conduct research at both institutions.

Transparent solar panel

The idea with the research is to develop glass that is transparent to visible light, just like the glass you find in the windows of buildings, motor vehicles, and mobile electronic devices. However, by incorporating the right phosphor materials inside the glass, the light from the sun that is invisible to the human eye (ultraviolet and infrared light) can be collected, converted, and concentrated to the sides of the glass panel where solar panels can be mounted. This invisible light can then be used to generate electricity to power these buildings, vehicles, and electronic devices. The invention is therefore a type of transparent solar panel.

Implemented in cellphone screens

This technology can be implemented in the building environment to meet the energy demands of the people inside the buildings. 

The technology is also good news for the 4,7 billion cellphone users in the world, as it can be implemented in the screens of cellphones, where the sun or the ambient light of a room can be used to power the device without affecting its appearance. 

Another possible application is in electric cars, where the windows can be used to help power the vehicle.

Low-income housing

Erasmus added: “We are also looking at implementing this idea into hard, durable plastics that can act as a replacement for zinc roofs.” 

“This will allow visible light to enter housing, and the invisible light can then be used to generate electricity. The device also concentrates the light from a large area to the small area on the sides where the solar panels are placed; therefore, reducing the number of solar panels needed and, in return, reducing the cost.”

The technology will take about a decade to implement.

“This study is currently ongoing, and we are experimenting and testing different materials in order to optimise the device in the laboratory. After this, it needs to be upscaled in order to test it in the field. It is truly the technology of the future,” said Erasmus.

Video: Barend Nagel

News Archive

UFS International Studies Group makes history come alive globally
2015-07-15

The UFS International Studies Group comprises students who are top achievers drawn from South Africa, Southern and Central Africa and even further afield.
Photo: Charl Devenish

Headed by Prof Ian Phimister, the UFS International Studies Group comprises six master’s, twelve PhD and twelve postdoctoral fellows who concentrate their research endeavours on African, Imperial and Global History. All of these students are top achievers drawn from South Africa, Southern and Central Africa and even further afield. This group, now only in its third year, presents a phenomenal research output with an international reach.

In the course of the past year alone, five PhD students secured fully-funded invitations to conferences and research seminars in South Africa, Britain, as well as the Netherlands. Our researchers have been publishing articles globally and securing visiting fellowships and research awards.

Dr Clement Masakure and Dr Rosa Williams won funding to present papers at the International Network for the History of Hospitals. Tinashe Nyamunda won a prestigious three-month Cadbury Fellowship at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Anusa Daimon has been selected as a 2015 Harry Guggenheim award winner, which covers workshop attendance in Nairobi, Kenya.

From among the group, twelve articles have been published or accepted for publication in refereed scholarly journals, as well as four chapters in edited books. Book reviews written by these highly-motivated graduate students, have appeared or will appear in leading national and international academic journals. Remarkably, seven book reviews appearing in one particular issue of African Studies Review, were written by this group. Four scholarly monographs have recently been published, or soon will be. One PhD student is the joint editor (with a senior Canadian academic) of a forthcoming study on Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange diamond mining industry.

Another outstanding researcher, Dr Lindie Koorts, won the award for the best debut writer at the 2014 Woordfees for her book ‘DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism’ – the first non-fiction writer to achieve this. Her book now appears on the longlist for the 2015 Alan Paton Award.

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