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| photograph by Wai Ming Ng for Marjan van Aubel |
The Energy Collection by Marjan van Aubel is a range of everyday glassware that is capable of collecting solar energy.
To get the technical part of it all right, Marjan cooperated with Michael Graetzel of the Ecole Polytechnic Federale Lausanne.
Because it's thát complex, i'm just gonna go ahead and copy/paste the entire section about the exact workings of the collection from her website:
Within each glass is a photovoltaic layer of dye Synthesized Solar Cell. This means that the properties of colour are being used to create an electrical current. This technology was invented by Michael Graetzel at EPFL. It is a technique based on the process of photosynthesis in plants. Like the green chlorophyll which absorbs light energy, the colours in these cells collect energy.
Graetzel uses a porous Titanium dioxide layer soaked with photosensitive dye – a natural pigment extracted from the juice of blueberries or spinach. He discovered that the dye that gives the red or blue colour to berries, gives off an electron when light strikes it. One side of the glass is positive, the other negative and when the cell is exposed to light, the dye transmits its electrons to the titanium dioxide and releases an electronic current.
The glassware uses sunlight as a sustainable source of energy, but can also work under diffused light. This makes them much more efficient for use inside the home compared to standard solar panels, which only work in direct sunlight and are not suitable for indoor use.
Different colours mean different properties. Each colour has a unique wavelength and collects different currents. For example, blueberries and raspberries have their own voltages and levels of efficiency according to the colour spectrum.Source: www.marjanvanaubel.com
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| photograph by Wai Ming Ng for Marjan van Aubel |
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| photograph by Wai Ming Ng for Marjan van Aubel |
To further clarify the working of the Energy Collection, this little video was made:
Lovely.
