A new solar cell could generate electricity underwater

一种新型太阳能电池可在水下发电

In one episode of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Birdman, the eponymous hero struggles to fight the evil Dr. Shark aboard a submarine without solar energy to recharge his powers. So Birdman would surely appreciate the new perovskite solar cells developed by a team led by Simin Ma at Yunnan University, since they are designed to work underwater. 在汉纳-巴伯拉（Hanna-Barbera）动画片《鸟人》（Birdman）的一集中，这位同名英雄在潜艇上与邪恶的鲨鱼博士（Dr. Shark）搏斗时，因缺乏太阳能来补充能量而陷入困境。如果鸟人能看到云南大学马思敏（音译）团队开发的新型钙钛矿太阳能电池，一定会非常欣赏，因为它们专为水下工作而设计。

Solar cells made from perovskites rather than silicon are always a tale of trade-offs. They can be made cheaply, they can take interesting forms (like thin, flexible, transparent films), and they can convert substantially more of the incoming solar energy into electricity. The difficulty is that they tend to degrade quite quickly. 与硅基太阳能电池相比，钙钛矿太阳能电池总是伴随着权衡。它们的制造成本低，可以制成各种有趣的形态（如薄、柔韧、透明的薄膜），并且能将更多的入射太阳能转化为电能。其难点在于，它们往往会很快降解。

Tuned for the deep

针对深海环境的调优

Moisture is particularly destructive to perovskites, making them a seemingly odd choice for an underwater solar panel. But these materials have another critical superpower: They can be tuned to work with different wavelengths of light. Water quickly blocks the wavelengths of light that silicon solar panels absorb, but a carefully designed perovskite cell could still make electricity in the deep blue sea. And actually, the lower light levels and cooler temperatures should help it live longer. 水分对钙钛矿具有极强的破坏性，这使得它们看起来并非水下太阳能电池的理想选择。但这些材料拥有另一项关键的“超能力”：它们可以通过调节来适应不同波长的光。水会迅速阻挡硅基太阳能电池所吸收的光波长，但精心设计的钙钛矿电池仍能在深海中发电。事实上，较低的光照强度和较低的温度反而有助于延长其使用寿命。

Tuning perovskites just requires tweaking some of their chemistry during production, so getting something that absorbs the wavelengths present a few meters deep was not a challenge. The real task was making the cells durable. The team found a particularly effective additive (polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride) that helped in several ways. It built a water-repelling layer around the material, for one. But part of the compound also gets involved with the perovskite crystal lattice, helping larger crystals form and preventing ions from moving around in the lattice structure. The additive limits some of the common ways that perovskites break down, while also improving the solar cell’s electricity production. 调节钙钛矿只需在生产过程中微调其化学成分，因此制造出能吸收水下几米深处光波长的电池并非难事。真正的挑战在于如何提高电池的耐用性。研究团队发现了一种特别有效的添加剂（聚六亚甲基胍盐酸盐），它在多个方面发挥了作用：首先，它在材料周围构建了一层防水层；其次，该化合物的一部分还能与钙钛矿晶格结合，促进大晶体的形成，并防止离子在晶格结构中移动。这种添加剂限制了钙钛矿常见的降解方式，同时也提高了太阳能电池的发电效率。

When the researchers tested the cells under light filtered to match an ocean depth of about 10 meters, they were remarkably efficient, converting about 35 percent of that light energy to electricity. (Silicon solar panels are generally closer to 20 percent efficiency.) 当研究人员在模拟约10米深海环境的过滤光下测试这些电池时，它们表现出了惊人的效率，能将约35%的光能转化为电能。（硅基太阳能电池的效率通常接近20%。）

Power in the water

水中动力

After building a proper little solar panel by sandwiching the perovskite in some protective layers, the team ran real-world durability tests. First, they submerged it in seawater (using their filtered light) for about 40 days, at which point it was still at 99.6 percent of its original efficiency. Based on that, they estimate it should last 5.5 years in seawater before it drops to 80 percent—what is typically considered its useful lifetime. While terrible compared to silicon, it’s well beyond what most perovskites have achieved. 在通过保护层封装钙钛矿制成小型太阳能电池板后，团队进行了实地耐用性测试。首先，他们将其浸没在海水中（使用过滤光）约40天，此时电池仍保持了原始效率的99.6%。据此推算，在降至80%（通常被视为有效寿命的阈值）之前，它在海水中的使用寿命可达5.5年。虽然与硅基电池相比仍有差距，但这已远超大多数钙钛矿电池的水平。

They also tested a panel in the South China Sea, attaching it to a small vehicle that could maintain a specific depth and position. The panel charged some coin cell batteries for a couple of hours each at 2, 6, and 10 meter depths. There were no surprises in performance beyond noticing that power fluctuated pretty strongly at 2 meters thanks to sunlight interacting with the surface waves. At the deeper depths, the increased scattering made the light hitting the solar panel much more consistent, though dimmer. At 10 meters, it produced a little less than a quarter as much energy as it did at 2 meters. 他们还在南海进行了一次实地测试，将电池板安装在一台能保持特定深度和位置的小型航行器上。电池板分别在2米、6米和10米深度为纽扣电池充电数小时。测试结果没有意外，只是发现在2米深度时，由于阳光与表面波浪的相互作用，功率波动较大。在更深处，光线的散射增强使得照射到电池板上的光线更加稳定，尽管强度有所下降。在10米深度时，其发电量略低于2米深度的四分之一。

The researchers say their design could enable “autonomous marine power systems and submerged Internet of Things infrastructure”—think uncrewed underwater vehicles and sensors, for example. Of course, if you go much deeper, there won’t be enough light to work with. Birdman is still on his own down there. 研究人员表示，他们的设计有望实现“自主海洋动力系统和水下物联网基础设施”，例如无人水下航行器和传感器。当然，如果深度过深，光照将不足以支持发电。在那样的深海里，鸟人依然只能靠自己了。

Joule, 2026. DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2026.102672