https://phys.org/news/2019-07-breakthrough-material-cheaper-widespread-solar.html Researchers have struggled for decades to make organic semi-conductors commercially viable for solar power and other applications. In the last few years, they've finally made significant progress with the organic semi-conductors themselves, but not enough to produce them for widespread commercial applications. In solar cells, their advantage would be that the materials are cheap, and lend themselves to reel-to-reel printing or even painting your entire house with. Along with cheaper batteries coming on the market this could make all the difference in the world for roughly half the world. Although they have yet to even think about producing these on a commercial scale, what they basically did was merely apply a 2D layer of a very soft metal that resembles graphene. In fact, similar efforts right now have incorporated graphene into other types of solar cells to improve their performance. Like graphene, their molybenum disulfide is relatively abundant and inert, but I don't know if its possible yet to mass produce it, while graphene is becoming much cheaper to produce. At any rate, this is one of those duh! discoveries, where they combined a great conductor with a cheap solar cell. Graphene can conduct ballistic electrons, or electrons moving so fast that Relativistic effects start to kick in. In contrast, household current doesn't even come close and is only moving at maybe 30% of the speed of light, while these are doing at least 60%. Their solar cells don't have to conduct ballistic electrons, and I mention it only as an analogy to how good these humble 2D conductors are. As cheaply as these solar cells can be made, they must also prove durable and the ability of graphene to conduct heat may be an added benefit that makes them more durable.
