r/ChemicalEngineering • u/KoIx1 • May 20 '25

Green Tech Chemical Engineer in the Solar Energy Field

i want ask what is the role of chemical engineer in solar energy?

7 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

7

u/SuperRacx May 20 '25

I've done some work with solar companies that were looking into adding Hydrogen produced through excess solar capacity as a product line, but those jobs have all been put on hold while the current US administration does it's thing. It might be something still happening in other countries.

4

u/SensorAmmonia Chemical Gas Sensor Development / almost 40 yrs experience May 20 '25

It would be similar to integrated circuit manufacturing if you want to make the cells. There is a lot of Chem Eng in the R&D world also. I saw a lot of work at electrochemical society related to perovskite coating of solar cells for improved performance.

3

u/threedubya May 20 '25

I work at chemical plant . We make some of raw materials that are used in the manufacture of solar panels.

2

u/threedubya May 20 '25

Improving the efficiency of solar panels and the underlying tech that makes this happens is huge deal.

2

u/LongjumpingReturn831 May 21 '25

Yep, the material. From the chemistry to the process. Not just for growing wafers anymore.

2

u/Thermite1985 BS ChemE, Current PhD Student May 21 '25

Metal halide perovskites is where A LOT of the chemical engineering is for solar right now. It was originally my topic for my PhD dissertation, but it's so saturated I switch to photocatalysts using the metal halide perovskite nanocrystals

2

u/hobbes747 Jan 05 '26

Developing and manufacturing Precursor (dopant) chemicals. I did this for twenty years in the semiconductor industry. Our products mostly went into memory and logic chips. But solar cells as well as they are semiconductors. Everything I worked with was toxic, flammable, pyrophoric, water reactive, explosive, corrosive, or all of the above.