Homemade Solar Cell

[reddishes]

I dl a .pdf file the other day claiming to detail how to make a cost efficient solar cell at home.  I've been studying the file and it details 3 ways to make a solar cell, but the most interesting one doesn't have much detail to it.  I have read and re-read it and took notes and came up with the following instructions to make the cell:

             Ingredients

cadmium sulphide in powder forn (or thick liquid or ink form)

Cadmium chloride powder or liquid

propylene glycol liquid form

carbon powder (wood ash will work apparently)

cadmium

tellurium

use the propylene glycol to mix the powders into a pasty ink

Set up to silkscreen onto glass.  Best to use a small area like an 8"x10" to begin with. Use yellow 200 mesh screen for your silkscreen printing and make sure that your frame is secured well to prevent drift.

Layer 1: clear glass

Layer 2: electrical insulation n-type CdS (cadmium sulphide)layer=negative

Apply 3 layers of Layer 2.  Allow to air dry between applications, then bake at 600C(1112F) for 3 to 5 minutes (best done outdoors in a grill due to toxic fumes)

Layer 3: p-type CdTe (Cadmium Tellurium)layer - equal parts Cd and Te with the  addition of CdCl2 (Cadmium Chloride)and propylene glycol, bake at 600C(1112F) for 3 to 5 minutes

Layer 4: a current collecting carbon electrode layer - silver & indium mixed to paste-apply a carbon layer prepared by kneading carbon powder with a viscous agent made of a solution of a resin in an organic solvent

Layer 5: an AgIn electrode positive terminal

OK, I'm not a chemist nor am I an electrician.  Does ANYBODY have enough working knowledge to tell me if this might work?  Because if it will, it looks like it might be possible to produce solar cells cheaply,  I would like to experiment, but it would take an initial investment of around $200 to $250 for the chemicals and misc. parts I'd need and would like somebody's expert opinion before I go there.  Any input would be welcome.  Thanks.

[AbyssUnderground]

If you could make solar panel's cheaply you'll be top of the media and probably raped of the procedure to do it :-)

Im not a chemist or an electrician either but I doubt this would work. Where would you get a 600*c oven from?

[reddishes]

you can easily acheive 600c with a BBQ grill if you do it right.  Quite a few types of pottery fire at that low of a temperature.  

[The Crazy Noob]

Could you give us the link to that pdf file please?

Thanks.

[jimjjnn]

One mistake could be disaterous to yours and anyone near.

BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL.

[reddishes]

No, actually I can't.  I didn't dl the .pdf file from a link.  A guy on IRC sent it to me.  

[Nando]

CdS cells can be done as you indicated BUT

The power available is extremely low and I mean llllllllloooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww.

Just remember if the product would have some potential many companies were making them already, the technology is well matured now.

Nando

[hvirtane]

Nando:

do you have any idea, how much power

you could get for one square meter?

Even if the power is low, if the

materials are cheap it might

pay to make these for example

in India, where there are

lots of people working within

handicraft industries making

colored clothes using similar techniques.

- Hannu

[dinges]

I think you are replying to your own question.

Indians are no idiots. Nor are Chinese.

The fact that they don't make them (or at least, I haven't seen them) should give an indication to the impracticality of the idea. And these are nations that not only have the knowledge (engineers/scientists) but also the labourforce.

Peter.

[hvirtane]

Peter:

I have personally brought a design

like this to India for a friend of mine,

who might have possibilities to do

something with it. But we didn't yet

have time to start making

experiments with it.

This design isn't yet so well known

among such people, who might have

possibilities to start making them. They

certainly aren't idiots.

I'm just wondering about, how much

power you could get out of it.

- Hannu

[Nando]

Hannu:

I do not have the figures in my head, but is very low.

CdS cells like 4 CM^2 around 25 to 100 microamps, we had to use Tube amplifiers later transistors to be able to use the voltage and current levels generated by the cell.

Tellurium with Cadmium ( ?) can be used to make thermal cells, a bit expensive but I think that china started to sell them for low power generation, like 5 to 10 watts.

Nando

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Cadmium is pretty toxic stuff.  I wouldn't fool around with it.

[The Crazy Noob]

Can you send it to: "publiek_adres [at] hotmail [dot] com" ? I'll put it on my webspace so the others can download it.

OR you can send the pdf to "user files" in you account down here at fieldlines and that way other users an also download it.

[nothing to lose]

Reddishes is correct about temps easy to get.

Bake normall wood till it cooks out the impureties and you have charcoal.

Burn the charcoal and blow in some air, you can melt aluminum easy for home parts castings, black smith, and if you want to build a bigger system even cast iron.

All bacically from dead scrap trees laying around in any woods

 Getting the heat is not a problem, need to build something to contain the heat though depending what your doing.

To bake the wood into charcoal, seal it in a barrel with a pipe on top to vent out gases, burn wood under the barrel. I had started a diary long ago I never finished, how to make the charcoal was the only thing I got posted then busy with too much stuff and never built the entire system into one working unit as I had planned, still all seperate parts but I am seldom casting and smithing as much now. Started traveling alot again.

[nothing to lose]

How would you rate these type against the simple copper sheet/copper oxides type.

As far as power produced, labour to make, costs, etc..

I made a few of the copper sheet ones, they worked and I could read them with a meter. But I never made enough to use for anything yet. Experimenting I used a propane torch for the heat source to burn the copper sheets, of course it would cost me more that way for propane than I would ever get back in power made with them.

 I never did much, but I was planning to try heating the copper sheets over hot coals or using the waste heat while melting aluminum (that's alot of heat!) to avoid feul costs.

 Scrap wood is free, I need to cleanup the woods here anyway, too many fallen dead trees rotting away I should be using.

[alcul8r]

I'd have real questions about any recipe that equated carbon powder with wood ash.  Powdered charcoal would be fairly pure carbon, but wood ash is what's left after the carbon burns out, fairly caustic.

[reddishes]

ok, I uploaded it to the user files in my account (I tried sending to your addy, but must have translated it wrong...).  It's solarcellplans.pdf.  I also upped some pics me and my daughter took of the sky after the storms that came thru here on Sunday that spawned all the tornados here in the midwest.  The plans are as is, 2 different types of cells outlined, and the Japan ones are the ones I detailed here.  They are somewhat incoherent in spots, and I did my best to interpret them.  My results are based on the description given of the process in the beginning of the pdf file and the notes written on the patent sheets at the end of the file.  I am beginning to think it might be easier to for me to make the copper ones at this rate.

[reddishes]

I have a lung disorder and so I have a respirator rated for even asbestos removal.  Cost me a bit but I like to carve alabaster when I have the time and the stone, and I don't want to aggravate my condition.  It would be sufficient to protect me from cadmium fumes/dust.  Also, my dad is a pharmacist and used to be a fairly spiffy chemist in his day.  If I undertake any of this, I would have him help me of course.  I don't fancy poisoning and/or blowing anybody up....  Another reason I was asking for opinions on whether this would be a viable solar cell.  No point to producing a cell that is too risky  during the creation process.  Why risk harming yourself or the environment if you don't have to?

[nothing to lose]

Thanks for pointing that out about wood ash, it slid by me.

"fairly caustic"

Soaking wood ash in water, letting the juice drain out into another container then evaporate is a way to make homemade LYE. Lye is used for many things, drain cleaner, paint remover, catylist for created hydrogen from aluminum and water etc..

Yep, fairly caustic, though I normally never considered the wood ash itself as harmfull, other than breathing it. Geuss it depends what is done with it.

[reddishes]

I think I'll just make a copper one.  Sheet copper and a blow torch.  Can't get much simpler than that.  

[ghurd]

When Nando said LOOooww, he meant lower than that.

I would recommend not spending much money until you make one to see how low low is, because this low is lower than low.

G-

[hvirtane]

Nando:

thank you a lot for your information.

The design I've got is

using different chemicals.

But the way how to make is

quite similar.

- Hannu