Article Treasures | What's Solar Energy?

Our topic is about solar power. I am sure that in one time of your life, you have heard people saying about the great benefits of having solar power at home, and how it can cut down the cost of your electricity bill that may reach almost half.

But then, you really don't know how it is possibly installed and how are you going to work on it in your own home. A lot of people nowadays are into making this kind of project not only to help them to cut down the bills, but to have fun as well. They just basically wanted to know if they can really make one themselves. That is why you will normally see this type of project in smaller versions which literally can only work a small toy robot and never an appliance in your home.

Solar power is a kind of power given by the sun. It is free and eco friendly. That is why a lot of people are now turning to make their own solar panels in order to save money from electricity and do their share of protecting mother earth. With solar power, you don't need fossil fuels that are needed to generate our normal energy to use at home. This can be very destructive to our nature as per the professional environmentalists.

If you are interested to make your own solar power at home, you can try doing this:

But before making the bigger project of completing the whole thing, you have to start by knowing how to make solar cells. Solar cells serve as the sun energy collector which will be then converted into energy to make your house appliance work.

Materials to use:

1. A flat copper sheet, preferable the flashing type which you can purchase from any hardware store.

2. Used transparent compact disc case or get a brand new one if you don't have a spare one to use.

3. Electric wire

4. Salt - just get it from your kitchen.

5. Glue gun with glue stick

6. Solder

7. Scissors that can cut the flat copper sheet.

Procedure:

* Cut the copper sheet that has the size of a burner.

* Make sure that your hands do not contain any oil or grease.

* Clean the copper sheet with soap to make sure that there are no oily residues in it.

* You should also make sure to remove any sulphide element in the copper sheet or any corrosive elements. You can make sure of that by using sandpaper to thoroughly remove the unwanted elements.

* Put the copper sheet on top of a burner and heat it for at least 30 minutes. As the copper sheet gets hotter, the black coat of cupric oxide will show. Let it just flake out by itself by letting the copper sheet cool by itself.

* It usually takes 20 minutes for the sheet to cool down. With your hand and water, remove the tiny particles of the black coating. Do not use any scrubbing pads for it may damage the surface of the sheet. After the black coat falls off, the next layer will be the reddish one which is known to be the cuprous oxide which is what you really need.

* Cut a strip of copper sheet. Now that you have two sheets of copper, glue both sheets on the cd case and solder wires on both sheets.

* Close the cd casing with the sheets and fill the inside of the casing with water and salt and then seal.