AuREUS technology: is it possible?

[nathanjell]

I saw some news articles about this tech called AuREUS. In short, the tech promises to use crop refuse to produce a bio-material containing luminescent particles that luminesce using UV light, and emit visible light. This material is installed vertically against existing windows, and PV cells along the edge pick up the visible light energy and we know how it works from here. This technology is featured as having won a Dyson award for renewable technology: see the tech overview and interview.

Now, this seems to be quite bold claims, with a few possible serious flaws:

• As with regular solar panels, would vertical installation not be a suboptimal orientation of installation for best capture of UV light? Just because it's a different wavelength doesn't mean those waves behave any differently.
• There is the luminescence of the particles, a conversion process of UV light into visible spectrum light. This is claimed to have two upsides: it works during cloudy days, and UV light is higher energy than visible light. But... this is installed in windows... where there is already visible light. So, there's an assumption that vertical installation permits sufficient capture of UV light, and retransmission of the visible light is sufficiently efficient to avoid losses. One industry product boasts up to around 85-90% transmittance.
• Internal reflectance of the visible light is sufficiently efficient, and reflects enough of the light, towards those edge mounted PV cells to allow them to pick up sufficient light.

The product claims to increase "solar energy harvesting density by tenfold", reduce reflection of UV light back to innocent bystanders by instead absorbing the light, and generate sufficient energy to be used to augment existing grid consumption.

So, I'm no engineer nor physicist, but at first glance this seems to be like a tall order with plenty of additional losses over a traditional solar panel installation. Do these claims stack up? Or, is this really dependent on the ideal installation environment, especially a test environment in which handheldor stationary UV light sources are used as the stimulant, rather than the sun?

[Someone]

The idea evolved from continuous pivots

Translation: we're scrambling to find any market for this concept. Its a collection a straw clutching exciting claims to try and push a dead horse.

Do you know what converts UV to electricity really efficiently? Silicon solar cells, so they're adding an intermediate step which only increases losses/cost.

We're already at the point where windows in buildings could be replaced with solid walls covered in solar cells, and lighting the interior with that electricity would be a profit over the life of the system. But people like windows...

[tszaboo]

If you use quantum dots, or something similar to convert UV down to visible, you will get more energy.
Maybe you get 10% extra power from the same panel. Could very well be a worthwhile evolutionary step with the panels.
To bad this page is written by bulshitters (or so-called, "marketing people"). I would like to see a research paper.

[Haenk]

This material is installed vertically against existing windows, and PV cells along the edge pick

I can't see how that could be anywhere near to being commerially successful. Solar energy harvesting is working best on "low cost" and "huge area". This idea is like solar roads, but more expensive and *way* less energy generated.