[airguy87]

hey all,
need to know a cheap recepie for making solar panels/cells.....need them for propogating coral, they grow better in mild electricity...salt water!

thanks

[eugenedakin]

Hello Airguy87,

This is a hobby of mine, and I have not yet found an inexpensive method of making solar panels.  If someone does have an inexpensive recipie, I would like to do some tests with it.  Feel free to e-mail available information.

Thanks,

Eugene

[Blueshawk]

For $15 (US dollars)  you can buy small solar cells that have about 1 ampere current.  If you need more you can just series for voltage or parallel for current.

Otherwise I am hope to do research that uses quantum dots as potential electron transfer sources...since that is one of the limiting factor for the solar cell
besides how to transer the electons from the top side of the cells back to the bottom..since that is need to conduct the electricity...that is what electricity is after all...the flow of electrons..which i hope most people know.

here is how they work if anyone is interested...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell.htm

[Corvettaholic]

Those 1 amp solar cells, they are 1.5volt right? So that would be 1.5watts for $15? Where can I get these? Amps are fun...

[Blueshawk]

I cannot remember where i found them, but here is a site that has comparable cells.

http://www.siliconsolar.com/solar_cells.htm


.54V @ 3000mA = about 1.5W     3"x6"x.1"  for $6.70

i will try to find the other cells i mentioned for $15.

[Corvettaholic]

I just sent off some questions to their sales department, I like the prices! About solar cells, what is the best way to orient them on a flat roof? Is there a way to make some sort of prism or a weird cube of solar cells so I can get more power density per unit of roof space?

I'm thinking the high amperage will be fun to play with. Get about 20 of the .54vdc, 6000mA cells and link them all in parallel, then touch the output to something else. 120 amps of fun!

[Blueshawk]

For getting the most out of your cells...You will probably need to angle them on the roof to get the max sun exposure.  They make trackers for the panels, that autotrack the sun...but can be expensive.

You can figure out the best angle for the sun by using your position on the planet..latitude and longitude...and figure out the angle of incoming light.

Most cells..low end ones...are designed to absorb light at certain wavelength.  Too short of wave...too much energy and most is wasted...Too long of wavelength...thus not enough energy to transfer electrons.

They make cells that are composed of mulitple layers for electron transfer.  Ex...One layer absorbs light in the blue region...while the other layer absorbs light in the red region.. This optimizes your solar cell to make it more efficient.

I haven't seem many cells that have the dual layer for absorption, that are relatively cheap.

You could play around with your solar cell/panel on your roof to figure out the best place, trial and error.

Hope this helps...!

[buckminsterfullerene]

the one that you are talking about having multiple layers is probably amorpheous cells, which are by the way the cheapest in the market, but also the least efficient, they also happen to be the easiest to make, what determines a cell from being amorpheous, polycrystalline or crystalline is the cooling rates, the longer you let it cool the more efficient it will become, so an amorpheous is about 5-7% efficient, however, in an amorpheous solar cell you put the cells in layer to increase the efficiency.

Another advantage with amorpheous solar cells is that you can actually bend the cells, unlike polycrystalline and crystalline cells they are very brittle and so thin such that the smallest amount of bending would immidiately break them.  One of the reasons that solar cells are so expensive is the production cost, they have to be assembled manually, so maybe if there is more awareness to this technology such as there was for computers and for inverters when they were worth hundreds of times more than such technology is worth now then the cost of a solar cell would eventually fall in the market as production increases.

they all consists of impurities of 1 part per million of both boron and phosphorous for the positive layers and negative layers and a layer in the center called the intrinsic layer just about a few molecules of lenght composed of silicon.  The silicon used in a solar cell has to be atleast 99% pure, and the formula that is involved in purifying silicon is as follows:
2SiO + C + 2000^oC ---> Si + CO₂
and since silicon is the second most abundant element on earth there goes my theory above.

about putting the solar cell to send electricity in salt water i do not know but i think that this could cause some hard to the cells and in time decrease the efficiency even more. Perhaps you should do something around that area to decrease the chance of that occurying.

there is another kind of cell that has a really high efficiency of about 35% and that is germanium cells, the problem is the production is very dirty and would really be more dangerous.

[Oldtimer]

.
How to make a silicon cell.

http://voh.chem.ucla.edu/classes/Solar_cells/pdf/Teacher_Solar.pdf

Another formula

http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/modules/documents/MakingSolarCells.pdf

Then to upgrade that concept:

http://www.keelynet.com/energy/sylcell.htm

I'm sure that once you've read through the first two you could probably whip up some solar cells as fast as making your own jug of wine.

Andy

[Oldtimer]

This one outlines the procedure much more historically with references.

http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/courses/phys2170/phys2170_Molecular_Biophysics_Prac.pdf

Even easier instructions:
http://www.solideas.com/solrcell/english.html

It becomes obvious that these aren't quite the same as the Germanium cells we may have become used to seeing. Perhaps you can use other oxides of metals too. Experimenting is what we are all about though.

People have discovered InGaAsN doping of the plates also decreases the energy bandgap is standard Gallium Arsenide cells by 1/3. Creating more electrical energy. GaAs cells are the purple colored ones we used to see in years past.
http://www.pnl.gov/energyscience/03-00/art2.htm

These Germans are working on the Germanium applications.
http://www.semiconductor-technology.com/contractors/materials/umicore/

And Berkely offers these treatise on manufacture of cell chips.
http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/archive/users/hollar-seth/publications/bellew_trans03_paper.pdf

Andy

[billnotgatez]

Oldtimer –
I went through the web sites you posted on this topic and found them interesting. Too bad the originator of this discussion is not with the forum anymore.
These links will start me thinking about solar cells again.

Regards,
Bill

[Oldtimer]

.
I saw it posted a while back and couldn't find the links I looked at last year. Too busy for a while.

I remembered looking at an article some guy wrote about cells that he made for his own use. He had several different methods and etched the glass for specific current pathways. I couldn't  find it anymore but it's probably still online somewhere.

I was looking for a means of making a paint to coat a metal shed roof that would become a solar cell 'slab'. I found his website instead. He was trying to make a paint for an entire car! First he made some kind of insulating coating to spread the paste across by spray. Then he had some product he was trying to develope made of a fruit juice to cover it and finally sealed it in with another plastic 'clear coat'.

It worked but the various pigments wouldn't stay put and leached up into the exterior finish. He determined that fiberglass substrates might be best later for various reasons.

He probably had some success and killed his own website. I'll check another hard drive to see if I saved it.
Andy

[billnotgatez]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_oxide

It is interesting that Titanium oxide / Titanium dioxide is used in paint.

[buckminsterfullerene]

interesting indeed, and here i was about to buy a packet that told you how to make solar cells for your own use .
i rememmber of this person in my school that made solar cells using plants, not sure if he was successful or not, according to my chemistry teacher he was but i have not heard of him or seen the project....
I think that the technology in solar cells are one of the most likely technologies and one we should look at, plants use that technology to make food, and we can use it as well, theoretically if we could collect all the solar energy that falls on the planet for 6 seconds we could gather enough energy to supply the earth for the next century, atleast according to my solar energy teacher.

[mike]

i rememmber of this person in my school that made solar cells using plants

Yes I have heard/read about this experiment too. sounds cool. you can use anthocyanins in ths construction of the solar cells. These are naturally occuring pigments (blackberries, raspberries, pomegranite seeds etc). Anthocyanins are also one of the components of the "red cabbage indicator" that allows it to work as a universal indicator. Cool stuff!