Free Energy from Solar Circuit made with Human Hair...Science & Tech News (UK)

[Hman]

Yes, you read the title correctly...

Apparently a 18 year old in Nepal who was trying to figure out how to make a cheap solar panel has found that human hair works in place of Silicon.  This is more of a news announcement than a description of the circuit but there is a picture of the device.

To me it doesn't look like it takes that much hair for this device to run?

This is amazing if it is true...

Anyone know more about this?  Any more news in the UK?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1212005/Teenager-invents-23-solar-panel-solution-developing-worlds-energy-needs-human-hair.html

[the_big_m_in_ok]

Hman said:

Apparently a 18 year old in Nepal who was trying to figure out how to make a cheap solar panel has found that human hair works in place of Silicon.  This is more of a news announcement than a description of the circuit but there is a picture of the device.

It would be nice to have a description of the circuit, or at least an explanation of how head hair acts as a semiconductor.

Especially, how the hair compares in function to a silicon solar cell.

--Lee

[ResinRat2]

Rats!!! 

I just got a Crew-Cut last week.

NO!!! I refuse to experiment with hair from any where else on me!!

HMMMMMM! Let's see...at night, in bed, my wife soundly sleeping. Scissors suddenly appearing in my hand...NO! NO! NO! Not going to happen.

My hair grows very slowly, so I guess I can plan for experiments about six months down the line. Just an observer I will be until then.

[onthecuttingedge2005]

Melanin;

Melanins, in the synthetic sense, are "rigid-backbone" conductive polymers composed of polyacetylene, polypyrrole, and polyaniline "Blacks" and their mixed copolymers. The simplest melanin is polyacetylene, and some fungal melanins are pure polyacetylene.

In 1963, DE Weiss and coworkers reported high electrical conductivity in a melanin, iodine-doped and oxidized polypyrrole "Black". They achieved the quite high conductivity of 1 Ohm/cm. A decade later, John McGinness, and coworkers reported a high conductivity "ON" state in a voltage-controlled solid-state threshold switch made with DOPA melanin. Further, this material emitted a flash of lightâ€"electroluminescenceâ€"when it switched. Melanin also shows negative resistance, a classic property of electronically-active conductive polymers. Likewise, melanin is the best sound-absorbing material known due to strong electron-phonon coupling. This may be related to melanin's presence in the inner ear.


Melanin voltage-controlled switch, an "active" organic polymer electronic device from 1974. Smithsonian Chip collection .These early discoveries were "lost" until the recent emergence of such melanins in device applications, particularly electroluminescent displays. In 2000, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists for their subsequent 1977 (re)discovery and development of such conductive organic polymers. In an essential reprise of the work by Weiss et al., these polymers were oxidized, iodine-doped "polyacetylene black" melanins. There is no evidence the Nobel committee was aware of the almost identical prior report by Weiss et al. of passive high conductivity in iodinated polypyrrole black or of switching and high electrical conductivity in DOPA melanin and related organic semiconductors. The melanin organic electronic device is now in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History's "Smithsonian Chips" collection of historic solid-state electronic devices.

Although synthetic melanin (commonly referred to as BSM, or "black synthetic matter") is made up of 3-6 oligomeric units linked togetherâ€"the so-called "protomolecule"â€"there is no evidence that naturally occurring biopolymer (BCM, for "black cell matter") mimics this structure. However, since there is no reason to believe that natural melanin does not belong to the category of the polyarenes and polycationic polyenes, like pyrrol black and acetylene black, it is necessary to review all the chemical and biological analytic data gathered to date in the study of natural melanins (eumelanins, pheomelanins, allomelanins)."

Evidence exists in support of a highly cross-linked heteropolymer bound covalently to matrix scaffolding melanoproteins. It has been proposed that the ability of melanin to act as an antioxidant is directly proportional to its degree of polymerization or molecular weight. Suboptimal conditions for the effective polymerization of melanin monomers may lead to formation of lower-molecular-weight, pro-oxidant melanin that is has been implicated in the causation and progression of macular degeneration and melanoma. Signaling pathways that upregulate melanization in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) also may be implicated in the downregulation of rod outer segment phagocytosis by the RPE. This phenomenon has been attributed in part to foveal sparing in macular degeneration.

the below picture;

Melanin voltage-controlled switch, an "active" organic polymer electronic device from 1974. Smithsonian Chip collection

[Hman]

@OTCE--

Good work...the reality of this device is coming into focus.  Maybe not as "far fetched" as it first sounded.  Looks like we may have just found a low cost melanin supply to experiment with.

@ResinRat2 - Save those hair clippings!

Who wants to create the "closed loop flow-bee" that runs on the hair it cuts?