[mechagodzilla]

I think the "interesting" part of this is that you could generate useful amounts of electricity with panels that could be made and repaired/maintained/recycled in a very DIY fashion. They would definitely be worse than commercial Si panels in every other way, but when a ~400W panel on my roof breaks, it's probably going to wind up in a landfill rather than me troubleshooting and fixing it. A 5%-efficient panel that was very DIY-friendly would be pretty neat.

[smaddox]

If not for EVA encapsulation, silicon solar cells can be "recycled" by a 30 minute forming gas anneal at 400C. I don't know if all panels have EVA encapsulation or not. If so, then I doubt these ZnSb would degrade any better without a similar encapsulation.

It's really hard to beat silicon.