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Welcome to the Smart Stuff solar power section with some of the world's smartest gadgets, inventions and ideas concerning solar power.





Future solar cells may be painted on the wall.
What if you could paint your house with a kind of paint that transformed the entire house into an energy producing solar cell? Well, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, directed by Somenath Mitra, thinks they have found a way to do this. They present their findings in a paper for the Journal of Materials Chemistry. In the paper, they explain how a combination of carbon nano-tube complex and Buckyball molecules on a polymer backing can produce create a flow of electrons, i.e electricity. When sunlight excites the polymer, it releases electrons, and the Buckyball molecule catches them. Although the Buckyball cannot create a flow of electrons, it can transfer them to the nano-tube where the flow is created. Researchers hope their discovery will be the base of a simple and cheap technology to build energy producing homes and, maybe, cars. [Via]

30 July 2007



Parans Solar Lighting

Sunlight everywhere.
Using fiber optic wiring and specially developed solar panels and lighting fixtures, it is now possible to install sunlight even in some of the darkest rooms. Sunlight has many advantages over electrical lighting. One of them of course being that sunlight is virtually free once the apparatus has been paid for. An other that the human organism reacts favorably to natural light. The Swedish company Parans Daylight has developed a system with which solar light can be transported up to 3 stories (about 15 meters or 50 feet) via fiber optic cable and distributed through special lighting fixtures, designed to mimic the way light filters through foliage. From Parans Solar Lighting. [Via]

28 May 2007



BigBelly. Trash can with with solar powered compactor.

Trash can with with solar powered compactor.
As we drink more and more soft-drinks, beers and bottled water, eat more junk food and read more free dailies, the trash mounts up in our cities. And to add to the mess, at least the people of Stockholm seem to have increasing difficulties in finding a suitable waste bin. If you do not believe us, visit Hötorget (a central city square) on a saturday- or sunday morning. It looks a lot like the picture on the left. The Stockholm City Council are currently running a pretty lame campaign to teach people to find the city's trash cans, but this may be a better idea. This is BigBelly, the trash can with it's own solar powered compactor. Thanks to the compactor, it can hold four times as much trash, and thanks to solar power it does not need any external power. The result? Well, according to a list of American cities that have bought and used the BigBellies, they have saved on trash collection costs and their streets are significantly cleaner. In our neck of the woods, it may work only in the summer, but on the other hand that is when the trash problem is the worst... More on Seahorse Power, who makes these bins. [Via]

23 May 2007



Trombe wall

Trombe wall - solar heating without the solar panels.
Already 400 years BC, Socrates suggested that houses should be oriented towards the South. That way the Sun's warmth would reach far into the rooms through the open doors, and the clay or stone walls and floor could store heat to release it during the night. In some modern solar houses, there is a wall of concrete or bricks just inside a large glass wall. Such a wall is called a Trombe wall. Using a Trombe wall could be a way to take advantage of solar energy without installing solar panels. The idea was first patented by Edward Morse as early as 1881 (US Patent 246626), but was ignored until 1964, when it was made popular by Felix Trombe and Jacques Michel. In short, the idea is that the concrete or brick wall stores the heat during the day, and releases it during the night. It does require well designed ventilation and insulation to work efficiently, but the idea seems like pure genius to us. Via Goto Reviews.

11 April 2006



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