Boffin builds DIY solar cell from doughnuts and tea
Improbability drive?
An inventor claims to have proven that a mixture of teatime staples from England and North America can be used to make solar panels.
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In a fast-paced video, the presenter runs through a process that essentially combines chemicals from tea and American-style sugared doughnuts to form a solar energy soaking film that can be applied to a sheet of glass.
The process isn’t easy and requires a fair amount of scientific kit, but he starts by extracting “titanium dioxide nanoparticles” from some powdered sugar doughnuts.
Roughly ten layers of these nanoparticles applied to a sheet of glass is, according to the video’s presenter, “pretty much a solar cell”.
But because this set-up on its own won’t work with “regular sunlight", the presenter next extracts organic dyes from a cup of sweet tea that enables the solar cell to “absorb light we can see”.
Finally, to prove that his invention works, the solar scientist hooks the cell up to a multimeter that appears to show an electrical current being generated from the DIY solar cell. ®
COMMENTS
Great job!
Science at its very best. And kudos for the southpark reference. ??? Profit!
Paris, because... well, because.
Never Work
This will never work.
Has this guy seen the crap people eat over here in the UK.
He would never get enough donuts out of the tea room!
all we need
great...so the donut & tea solar panel it generates electricity...needed to power the LIGHTS
inside because no natural light can get through the donut and tea smeared windows!!!!
good one Dr einstein! hee hee hee
Conducting glass
Conducting glass is just glass coated in tin oxide. Not terribly hard to do, even in a garage workshop.
Mine's the lab coat with the name "Mad Scientist" stenciled on it.
That pisses on Scientific Eye!
K, so I went to school as we all do; science bored the living shit out of me... largely because it wasn't very interesting. Oh why could they not have taught us like this guy? He makes it interesting and compelling - keep it up dude, you're a genius!
