the effect of colour filters on solar · pdf filethe effect of colour filters on solar panels...
TRANSCRIPT
OBSERVATION
By using a solar light instead of electricity, one
can assist in lightening the load on our
environment.
By using solar panels, we do not pollute our
environment and we lighten the impact of global
warming.
Different solar lights have
different burning times.
SUNLIGHT
Plants use the sun on a daily basis to synthesize sugars and so light energy from the sun is transformed into chemical energy.
When a person is sitting in the sun, your body warms up, and in this manner light energy is transformed into heat energy.
Similar to this, light energy from the sun is transformed into electrical energy to generate a current in solar panels or photo-voltaic cells.
USES OF SOLAR PANELS
Calculators
Lighting and heating of pools
Charging of cellphones
Solar-powered cars and airplanes
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL
Sunlight contains energy and when sunlight
touches an object, it can be transformed into a
different type of energy.
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL
Most Solar panels have a layer of silicon crystals
that generates an electric current when sunlight
shines on it
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL
An electric current is generated when an electron
inside an element moves and heat is generated
when electrons remain on one place and vibrates.
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL
When sunlight shines on the layer of silicon on
the solar panel, electrons inside the silicon
crystals start to move and an electric current is
generated
COLOUR AND LIGHT
White light is a mixture of different colours:
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet
When white light, like sunlight, shines through a prism, a rainbow of colours is generated on the other side.
COLOUR AND LIGHT
Different colours of light have different
wavelengths and light that we can see is called
the visible spectrum.
COLOUR AND LIGHT
The longer the wavelength of a wave, the less
energy the wave will have or a lower frequency.
COLOUR AND LIGHT
The colour of any object is determined by the type
of light that is sent to our eyes.
COLOUR AND LIGHT
Many photographers use different coloured
lenses to reflect light of certain colours and
absorb light of another colour, creating a
different type of colour photo.
MATERIALS
7 x Consol “Solar Jar” – Glasbottle, Solar panel,
LED Light – one bottle is used as control
RESULTS
Wavelength of Light Colour of Filter Burning Time (Hours)
400nm – Violet/Purple Purple 4 hours 12 min
475 nm – Blue Blue 4 hours 30 min
550 nm – Green Green 5 hours 34 min
600 nm – Yellow Yellow 5 hours 45 min
650 nm – Red Red 1 hour 13 min
DISCUSSION
From our experiment, we can have the following
derivations:
Different wavelengths of light made different
amounts of energy available;
The colour filters only allowed light of the same
colour to pass through the filter;
Longer wavelengths of light passed more energy to
the atoms and caused the light to burn for a longer
time.
DISCUSSION
The red filter let the least amount of light pass
and the light burned for the shortest time.
It is possible that the red light did not have
enough energy to excite the electrons on the
silicon atoms.
DISCUSSION
00:00
01:12
02:24
03:36
04:48
06:00
Violet Blue Green Yellow Red
The Burning Time of Solar Lights with Different
Coloured Filters
CONCLUSION
Results support the hypothesis – Different
coloured filters has a different effect on the
burning time of a solar light.
Therefore it is better not to use coloured solar
lights.