Solar Energy Conversion with and without Work Production: A Supplement To The Actual Thermodynamic Description

The photon absorption in solar cells is divided into processes with and without work production. An analogue of the processes without work production is the selective absorption of solar radiation by pigment molecules of plant cells, and an example of processes with work production is the work of chlorophyll molecules in plant photosynthesis. We have called the without work processes photon reemission and shown that it plays a particular role in the conversion of solar heat into work. The photon reemission is divided into reversible and irreversible processes. A comparison of its efficiency made it clear that it is impossible to attain very high efficiencies in the conversion of solar heat into work without the reversible photon reemission occuring in parallel. The method for calculating the relative contributions of with and without work production processes and the relative contributions of the reversible and irreversible photon reemissions is proposed