Finally : cheap DIY selfmade solar cell with common materials !

[hartiberlin]

Hi ALL,
I guess this is a real breaktrough in solar energy
as now a selfmade process to produce cheap solar cells has
been posted on Youtube.

Have a look at this:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=sro78xUOsXg

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

Okay, I just received the info how to build it from Matt:

He said:


things required
strong thin knife,glass cutter,Titanium dioxide,LCD panel,silver conducting varnish,methylated spirits,
distilled water,plant dye,sealant glue,source of iodide/iodine,candle.

be very wary when disassembling LCD screens-the potential for cuts is always present.
handle with cloth covers when prying open-use eye protection.

disclaimer-dont try this at home if your a fool and likely to hurt yourself.


1.disassemble an LCD panel.
use a stanley knife to remove glue from plate edges.
run cuts across the plastic film coating to allow the introduction of methyted spirits
to breakdown the glue holding the plastic film coating.
remove the plastic film from both sides.
check the egdes have been thouroughly roughed up and any excess epoxy like glue on the edges of the
LCD panel.you can try your luck with some sort of solvent to loosen up the panels,but i just scored the panel right the middle with a glass cutter,both sides,and started to pry the edges open.was going really well until cracked it-luckily the crack followed the glass cut line,and eventually i had the 2 faces of the panel appart although it was broken in a few a places.remove the plastic film from the inside of the panel after washing the liquid crystal goo off trim up the pieces with the glass cutter,so you have to pieces the same size.

2.clean the trimmed pieces with methylated spirits,to remove all traces of adhesive.
paint tracks of conductive silver across the face of the Tin Oxide side of the glass.
take the collective bunch of tracks to one edge of the plate,this is where you will attach you terminals.

3.prepare the Titanium Dioxide with 50/50 distilled water ,and methylated spirits.
stir it up and use the fine stuff of the top after settling to apply to the plates.

4.apply the Tio2 suspension onto the plates.allow to dry heat dry if available-i used a heat gun.
5.prepare the dye by mashing with methylated spirits,and squeeze thru fine cloth onto only one plate.allow it to settle into the Tio2 layer.wash with distilled water.
allow to dry-heat dry if possible.

6.prepare a candle with a long flame.quickly run the plate that has no dye on it over the flame,to deposit carbon onto the plate.wash with distilled water allow to dry-heat dry if possible

7.by this stage you have 2 plates-one with Tio2 and dye-one with Tio2 and carbon.
thouroughly clean the edges to prepare for the sealing glue-i used methylated spirits.
8.run a bead of the egde sealing glue around one plate,leaving a small gap at one corner for the excess electrolyte to run out when.this will help in sealing it without any bubbles inside.
9.i mixed betadine antiseptic solution(which contains povidone iodine 12%) with methylated spirits-80:20
10.pour some electrolyte onto the plate and place the other plate on top,tilting it slightly so that the corner that is the opposite corner to the gap in the sealant.
place the top plate down so that you can pick it up tilt it slightly so the air gap can be squeezed out the top corner.put sealant over the corner gap.

remember to leave a slight overlap and have the terminals at opposite ends.

regards

m3sca1

[hartiberlin]

Matt wrote:

Re: Re:solar panel LCD recycle
Datum:   
30.Jan.09
Nachricht:   
this is my first attempt -so i dont know what would happen without the berry juice.
i was just following the description of the TiO2 dye cell to begin with.
and see where it went.
im thinking of trying copper and silver instead of TiO2 and ITO ,and using chlrophyll,but these are down the road-this is just the beginning.
feel free to spread these ideas ,and encourage others to to have a go!

many regards

matt

power to the people!
=]


I replied:

Hi Matt,
Well,
you really have to find a semiconductor PN-layer to get this to work.
So there must be the right bandgap for to convert the electronVolts
of the sunlight to push electrons through this diode-bandgap...

So with just 2 metals like silver and copper you mighthave a totally wrong
bandgap and you just only create a galvanic cell, where the metals are used up
with the electrolyte.

In a solar cell the trick is to have the right bandgap PN-layer for the sunlight
and not to use up the electrodes in the process..


Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

Hi Matt,

why did you put TIO2 onto the plate with the graphite from the candle ?

Normally you need only one ITO-TIO2 PN-layer and the other glas
must only have graphite as the other electrode.

The silver is okay to collect the electron current from the graphite,
so you just could use a silver painted glas or plastic plate
where you would have put the graphite onto the silver.

So you could spare one ITO coated glasplate.

The sunlight conversion just only happens between
the ITO-TIO2 surface layer that is exposed to sunlight.
The smaller this layer is, the better the conversion,
so just try to make this very thin, just a few mikrometer.

So it was a good idea to burn the TIO2 into the ITO with
a hot gun.


Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

Matt still wrote:

m3sca1 has sent you a message:

Re: Re: Re:solar panel LCD recycle
>why did i put the TiO2 on the other side too?

because i made a mistake

thanx for bringing that to my attention.
i didnt notice that when i looked it over.

maybe that will give better results now.


thanx agsain

matt