Teenager Invents Cheap Solar Panel From Human Hair 366
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samzenpus
from the 50-watt-shampoo dept.
from the 50-watt-shampoo dept.
Renoise writes "Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world's energy needs. A solar panel made from human hair. The hair replaces silicon, a pricey component typically used in solar panels, and means the panels can be produced at a low cost for those with no access to power. The solar panel, which produces 9 volts (18 watts) of energy, costs around $38 US (£23) to make from raw materials. Gentlemen, start your beards. The future of hair farming is here!"
9V != 18W (Score:1, Informative)
Voltage is not the same as power.
Re:9V != 18W (Score:3, Informative)
Voltage is not the same as power.
Umm, yes it is. What's next, are you going to say you can borrow yourself out of debt?
Voltage is electromotive potential. It measures a sort of pressure that occurs on electric charge. Current is measured in amps and measures the flow of charge itself. You can't have power (watts) without current. So, no, voltage is not the same as power.
Re:9V != 18W (Score:4, Informative)
he solar panel, which produces 9 volts (18 watts) of energy, costs around $38 US (£23) to make from raw materials.
That is raging bullshit.
9V at 18 watts = 2 AMPS at 9 volts. The teenager is lying, the summary is lying, or whole thing is fake.
so this kid stumbled upon a cheap system that is 900X more efficient than the best Solar panels made by industry? either that or his solar panel is 30 feet long by 2 feet wide.
Melanin as a semiconductor (Score:5, Informative)
Turns out that Melanin is a semiconductor. Here are some references:
- http://www.organicsemiconductors.com/ [organicsem...uctors.com]
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/16014151_Semiconductor_properties_of_natural_melanins [researchgate.net]
While this may not be a solution for everyone, even small scale manufacture could be enough to spur research to improvement of the technology. Maybe the wool industry should start investing in this?
Re:9V != 18W (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure how you've worked that out. At a fairly optimistic 10% efficiency, I reckon he would need about a fifth of a square meter to output 18W, given that sunlight has an energy density of 1kW/m^2, give or take. That roughly matches area of the device he's shown holding. A 30ftx2ft similar panel would have roughly 600W output.
This doesn't mean it's not bullshit, naturally; it just means that the numbers *could* add up.
Re:9V != 18W (Score:5, Informative)
The same principle applies to any other non-ideal voltage source. A solar panel that produces 9V open circuit or at some low current is not necessarily able to produce 9V at 2A.
Re:9V != 18W (Score:3, Informative)
From TFA:
Half a kilo of hair can be bought for only 16p in Nepal and lasts a few months, whereas a pack of batteries would cost 50p and last a few nights.
So, no it's not a hidden cost, it's just cheaper than the existing costs.
Re:9V != 18W (Score:1, Informative)
120 Volts * 20 Amps (The standard limit for breakers in residential wiring in the USA) = 2400 Watts.
You can run anything that comes in under that limit.
There's no getting around Ohm's law...
Re:Ridiculous! (Score:4, Informative)
>Someone pointed out above that melanin is actually a known semi-conductor.
Yes, and someone also said that saw palmetto cures cancer.
Just because something is a semiconductor does not mean it's like, a *semiconductor*. Horse droppings are a semiconductor.
Your typical usable-for-electronics semiconductor has an impurity level of like one part per billion. It ceases to be interesting if the impurity level get much higher than this.
Please posit how this kid has purified melanin to one part per billion, then doped it with the right miniscule proportion of carriers.
Then we can talk about semiconductors.
Polar Bear Hair? (Score:3, Informative)
"Polar bear hair may be a natural fiber-optic cable. A cross section (right) shows a solid shaft surrounding a reticulated core. The shaft apparently can trap ultraviolet light and aim it toward the skin (above)."
"Grojean believes the hair shaft somehow conducts scattered radiation to the surface of the skin (which is actually black), where it is absorbed and converted into heat."
Mirsky, Steven D., "Solar Polar Bears", Scientific American, 258(3), 24-5 (Mar. 1988).
Re-invented the battery? (Score:1, Informative)
A description in the comments on the Daily Mail site describes mixing the hair with a concentrated salt solution and placing that in a bath with electrodes of different materials. If that is the case then the hair is irrelevant. The reaction is between the salt and the electrodes. That the 'hair solution' needs replacing would also hint that this. It is not the hair being consumed but the salt it is mixed with and probably the electrodes. If the comment is correct the person has reinvented the battery.