The day has arrived when you have to think about how to build solar panels in your own home to save energy bills and therefore precious money and do your little bit for saving the environment.
The good thing about doing this is it can be a fun exercise for an individual and of course, for the entire family as well. To get started on making your cell to harness the energy from the sun to power your home, you will need to make a visit to the hardware store.
Once there, buy half a square foot of a sheet of copper flashing, an electric stove, a large mouth bottle, glass or plastic (5 litre mineral jar), a sensitive micro-ammeter, few table spoons of table salt, tap water, sand paper or wire brush on an electric drill, metal shears and three alligator clip leads.
Now to start the experiment. Clean your hands thoroughly and wipe it dry completely. The copper sheeting has to be cut to the size of the diameter of the food heater. Now, wash the sheet with detergent in order to do away with any oil residue on it. With the sand paper, wipe the sheet dry.
Once this is complete, let the sheet cool off without inducing the cooling process. It will be seen that the sheet is getting smaller. Flaking of the chemical deposits will be seen at this point.
As soon as it cools down entirely, it should be held under a tap of running water to allow the flakes to fall off. This has to be done with ease and a gentle touch so as not to hurt the SOLAR PANEL.
You will now need another sheet of copper around the same dimensions as the first. Fit them into the bottle without letting them touch each other. The side of the sheet facing up on the stove should face out into the bottle.
Now, attach your clip leads, one to the new copper plate, and one to the COOKED one. The clean sheet should be attached to the positive side of the meter and the cooked one to the negative.
Mix hot tap water with a few table spoons of salt until completely dissolved. Pour the saltwater into the bottle taking care not to wet the clip leads. Pour rill about an inch of the copper sheets are above water. Your solar cell is ready!
Of course, do not think that it will light up a bulb or something like that. This unit generates only 50 micro amps at 0.25 volts. Ways to use this can be as a detector of light or light meter. To light up an entire home would require the manufacture of hundreds more of such batteries. That would come to a huge expense.
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