We may not need any stinking oil after all..

[multigraincracker]

https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260328024517.htm

Scientists have found a way to push solar efficiency beyond 100% by multiplying energy from sunlight using a novel molecular system. The approach could pave the way for next-generation solar technologies. Credit: Shutterstock
In research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on March 25, scientists from Kyushu University in Japan, working with collaborators at Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Mainz in Germany, developed a new way to push past this barrier. They used a molybdenum-based metal complex known as a "spin-flip" emitter to capture extra energy generated through singlet fission (SF), often described as a "dream technology" for improving light conversion.
With this approach, the team achieved energy conversion efficiencies of around 130%, exceeding the traditional 100% limit and pointing toward more advanced solar technologies.


does sound too good to be true...Like a perpetual motion machine. But I'm open to science.

[harumph]

1. Someone please explain how this doesn't break the first law of thermodynamics.

I know you can't get more energy out of a system than goes in. So, maybe some of the energy going in was considered
not recoverable and not heretofore counted? I'm confused with this. It does sound hinky.

[stopdiggin]

2. it is harnessing a 'second' source of energy, in addition to the solar

now the question remains - is this 'additional' energy suppose to be renewable (inexhaustible?) - or does it require production and input to keep producing .. ?

[FakeNoose]

7. Not if it's harnessing solar power, which is infinite as long as we have a source

The laws of thermodynamics can always be revised, when new scientific facts come to light.

[Eddie Haskell 60]

9. I have no science background

But I've seen stuff how fusion reactors are getting better at generating more energy output than they receive. Probably not related to thermodynamics.

[mr715]

18. No, that is thermodynamics.

Fusion is one of the most efficient energetic events, but it requires extremely high initiation energy. Basically, you need to overcome electromagnetic (i.e. chemistry) repulsion to harvest strong nuclear (i.e. physical) potential.

Historically, we could do this in an uncontrolled fashion by using the x-ray and neutron flux in an atom bomb to initiate fusion in deuterium and tritium to make a hydrogen/fusion explosion. Usually about 10-100x more energy than fission per unit of mass.

Now we can has controlled fusion, but the amount of energy it takes to shield the reaction vessels from being vaporized eats up all the excess energy produced. Basically, you cannot get 100% useful energy from any source. Some of it is always going to be wasted.

And yes, we are getting better at initiating fusion reactions and shielding reactors using lasers and strong magnetic shielding, but these eat up energy also so the dream of cold, controlled fusion still isn't here.

We may get it some day, but even still, not 100% efficient. Just extremely energetic and relies on a resource (water) we have in abundance.

[Eddie Haskell 60]

21. cool

thanks for sharing!

[flashman13]

12. I'm not buying any of this. To start with, there is no such thing as 100% efficency in any realm.

[Shermann]

16. The 130% number being bandied about in the article refers to quantum efficiency

This isn't the overall efficiency of the panel. I think the dream number for panel efficiency would be approaching 50% but the article isn't clear.

[James48]

3. I am always raising my eyebrows

When I hear the words “singlet fission”.

Fission always perks up my attention.

[mr715]

19. Why?

Fission is so 1940s. Fusion is much more... well 1950s.

[mr715]

4. It isn't 130% efficient if it is 2 energy harvesting events.

Kinda silly saying energy conversion efficiency is every 100% or (ha) greater.

Lord Kelvin would have something to say.

Rule of thumb is energy conversion cost 90% of the energy entering the system.

[NNadir]

5. I discussed this badly misinterpreted wishful thinking case in another thread on the topic.

It's here:

As usual, the "percent talk" is taken completely out of context. From the full paper, to which I have access:

It is unfortunate that the general public has a poor understanding of the laws of thermodynamics so they tend to invest themselves in this sort of thing.

Because of land and material requirements, so called "renewable energy" and, in particular, solar electricity is not sustainable.

The only pathway out of the collapse of the planetary atmosphere is nuclear energy, and the longer we wait to understand this - and we've already waited way too long, buried under antinuclear mysticism - the less likely it is that we will be able to save that which remains to be saved.

[angrychair]

6. No

We would be better off burning coal for all eternity than nuclear power. At least coal doesn't have a byproduct that that we have to bury and monitor for the next 40,000 years

[BidenRocks]

8. Mercury in the exhaust smoke.

Mercury in the streams and lakes.
Mercury in us.
Clean coal!

[NNadir]

10. That is appalling and dangerous nonsense. When confronted...

...with this deadly rhetoric I ask people to show, that in the 70 years of commercial nuclear power, to show, by appeal to the primary scientific literature, that the storage of (valuable) used nuclear fuel has killed as many people as will die in the next ten hours from air pollution. That would be about 9000 people since air pollution, dangerous fossil fuel waste, kills about seven million people each year.

Note that does not include deaths from extreme heat and other form of extreme weather brought on by the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide.

I generally cite papers from that primary literature but I'm away from my computer.

I have never, not once, have met an antinuke who doesn't coddle dangerous fossil fuels although few are as overt about their support for the death of the planetary atmosphere as in the current case. Usually their support for the horrible coal industry is implied, not openly stated.

I appreciate the honesty although I'm appalled by it.

Have a nice day.

[twodogsbarking]

11. After coal is burned fly ash has to be disposed of. What goes into the air stays in the air.

I grew up in coal country and spent 8 years working for a coal company. It isn't the future.

[IbogaProject]

14. Coal ash has radioactivity and heavy metals

And the issue with that is the volume of coal ash per watt of power generated.

[mr715]

15. More people have died in coal processing, burning than nuclear.

Coal plants are objectively more hazardous than nuclear power plants.

If you want to get rid of nuclear waste, we can fire it into the Sun. That is more cost effective than relying on coal - a non-renewable energy source that will eventually be worth more than gold.

[Disaffected]

24. Nonsense

Nuclear power is vastly better than climate change catastrophe (which may be sooner than we think, or at least what the RW troglodytes think).

[multigraincracker]

13. Isn't this a peer review journal?

Can’t it be repeated to verify their result?
Isn’t that how science works? Only in my field of interest and not any expertise.
Might be interesting to see how it works out by others.

[mr715]

17. Its a popsci distillation.

The nitty gritty isn't 130% efficiency.

That would mean we'd have free energy and would start using it to sequester carbon and have a planetary utopia.

100% efficiency doesn't exist. 130% efficiency 130% doesn't exist.

[NNadir]

23. No. I accessed the paper on which this pop misinformation is based.

JACS is a very respected journal, but this popular website has poorly interpreted what the JACS paper says.

[swong19104]

20. It's not a perpetual motion machine

because it’s not an entirely closed system. The sun hits the earth with a huge amount of energy.

However, I think how the news of this work is stated may be improperly phrased.

[JHB]

22. Link to the actual scientific paper mentioned in the press report

Only the Abstract is freely available. The full paper is paywalled.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c20500
Exploring Spin-State Selective Harvesting Pathways from Singlet Fission Dimers to a Near-Infrared-Emissive Spin-Flip Emitter

Percy Gonzalo, Sifuentes-Samanamud, Adrian Sauer, Aki Masaoka, Yuta Sawada, Yuya Watanabe, Ilias Papadopoulos, Katja Heinze, Yoichi Sasaki, and Nobuo Kimizuka
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2026, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX

(all the X's mean it has been published online as an early view, but has not been assigned to a particular volume and issue yet)

Abstract
Singlet fission (SF), a photophysical process generating two triplet excitons from one singlet exciton, has the potential to boost efficiency in photovoltaics and organic light-emitting diodes. Previous studies on energy-level control and intermolecular interactions have identified key factors for maximizing the efficiency of the initial SF process. However, in isothermic/endothermic SF systems, such as tetracene derivatives, the subsequent sensitization process becomes less efficient in the presence of a competing Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) process. Here, we demonstrate that a molybdenum-based near-infrared light-emitting spin-flip emitter serves as a triplet-selective energy acceptor from triplet states of tetracene-based dimers generated by SF. The large energy gap existing between the spin-allowed transitions and the luminescent spin-flip transition of the molybdenum complex allowed efficient exothermic triplet energy transfer (TET) to the spin-flip excited doublet state of the complex while circumventing the FRET from the initially formed tetracene singlet state to the high-energy spin-allowed states of the complex. The quantum yields of the doublet state formation of the molybdenum complex by tetracene-based SF dimers with phenylene, 2,5-methylphenylene, and p-terphenylene bridging units were quantified to be 112 ± 6%, 132 ± 2%, and 128 ± 4%, respectively, in solution. The drop of fluorescence lifetimes of the SF dimers at high concentrations of the molybdenum complex implies energy transfer from exchange-coupled triplet pairs, highlighting the importance of controlling exchange interaction and triplet pair recombination. This work represents a significant step toward developing exciton/photon amplification materials by combining SF materials with transition-metal complexes, advancing the application of SF beyond conventional limitations.

[Disaffected]

25. The paper if not talking about energy conversion efficiency.

Anything over 100% is not possible.

[H2O Man]

27. Wait!?!

Didn't the president lowert the prices of everything 800% ?

[H2O Man]

26. Recommended.

That's an area of science well beyond my understanding. But I have a feeling that some teenager somewhere will figure it out.