SolarSkin
Project Overview
University
Year
About
Conventional solar panels produce electricity or heat, while demand for each varies with the weather. SolarSkin switches automatically between generating electricity in warm conditions and directing solar heat indoors when temperatures fall. A sealed drop of water changes between vapour and liquid, altering how a lens focuses sunlight onto a photovoltaic cell or a heat-absorbing surface. Requiring no pumps, valves or electronics, this dual-mode system could capture more useful energy from sunlight and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Team
Raphael Kay
Raphael is a Harvard PhD Candidate, Co-Founder, and Board Member, building unconventional climate and energy technologies inspired by living organisms. Bridging his training in design, biology, and materials chemistry, Raphael is lead inventor on ~20 filed patents and first/lead author of ~10 published papers, having scaled teams from 0 to >10 and winning >45 awards in energy and sustainability (e.g., Forbes 30 Under 30, Science). Raphael’s research has been featured >150 times (e.g., Bloomberg, Nature, Fast Company), while earning him invitations to speak on radio shows/podcasts, as well as to lunar design teams (e.g., NASA) and Presidential/Prime Ministerial delegations worldwide.
Rafiq Omair
Rafiq Omair is a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Toronto and a researcher at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, where he works on sustainable building design. He also conducts research on education policy, focusing on access and pathways into engineering. Outside the lab, he builds in the areas of education and clean energy, he also volunteers at middle school across Canada to teach science.