If you want to go green and use solar power to meet all your energy needs, you might be tempted to create your own solar cells as part of the process. After all, if you can create your own solar panels then why not go the next step and also create solar cells as well?
While it’s tempting, I would urge you to consider whether or not you actually need to create your own solar cells before you do anything. It’s nice in theory to say that you built everything – but the reality is that making solar cells is an extremely tedious process and you can buy them for very, very cheap on eBay.
It will probably take several hours to make a single solar cell – and a typical solar panel has hundreds or even thousands of cells on it. So eBay is a better alternative for most people.
If, however, you are set on actually making your own solar cells, here’s what you need in order to get started:
- Half a square foot of copper flashing sheet
- Two alligator clip leads
- Micro-ammeter that reads between 10 and 50 microamperes
- An electric stove (or an electric hot plate if you have a gas stove)
- Large clear plastic bottle
- Several tablespoons of salt
- Tap water
- Sandpaper
- Metal shears (for cutting the coppers flashing sheet)
First, cut the copper sheet so that it’s about the same size as your electric hot plate or the burner on your electric stove. Make sure you wash the sheets, your hands and that you use sandpaper to clean the sheet as well because you need it clean before getting started.
Next, place the sheet on the burner and turn the burner to its highest setting. Leave the stove on for about 30 minutes – the copper should turn to a thick black coating by the end. Once this happens, turn off your burner and let the copper sheet cool for about 20 minutes.
Once the copper cools to room temperature, most of the black oxide will be gone and it will now look like a combination of red and black spots.
Now, cut another copper sheet that’s about the same size as the first one you created. Bend those pieces together so they can fit into the plastic bottle without touching each other.
Now take the two alligator leads you have and connect one lead from your burner copper sheet to the negative terminal of the micro-ammeter that you have, and then connect the other lead from the unburned copper sheet to the positive terminal.
Finally, mix a few tablespoons of salt in with some hot tap water and put the salt water mixture into your bottle – but don’t completely cover the copper sheets. Leave around a quarter of inch of each sheet above the water.
Now, put your new device in the sunlight and see if the ammeter shows any current flowing through. If you’ve made it correctly, you should show at least a few microamps of current.
To power a 100 Watt lightbulb with this setup, you would need 80,000 square meters of these copper solar cells – so it’s not a practical alternative for most people!
