M
Morris Dovey
[ posting from news:alt.solar.thermal ]
The discussion of panels producing both hot air and hot water started
an interesting (to me) chain of thought...
I already use a slat-type absorber in my panels; and I've built one
air/water heating panel that worked passably well at delivering the
incident energy in whatever mix of warmed air/water was called for.
This morning I was speculating on how convenient it would be if the
slats produced electricity in addition to hot air and hot water - and
how if that could be done at reasonable cost, an all-in-one solution
might be possible. Pure blue-sky stuff - but then a couple of
previously unconnected ideas came together: What if my extruded
aluminum slats could be replaced with extruded silicon slats?
I wasn't particularly troubled that silicon isn't a good candidate for
extrusion processes - but then I thought about how the cylinders (from
which solar cell wafers are cut) are produced; and reasoned that
shapes other than round can be produced by interposing a die at the
top of the molten silicon - and that, depending on the "extruded"
shape, might accelerate the process, eliminate the wafer sawing, and
still provide all of the characteristics required for solar cells.
I've put up a web page at the link below with drawings to illustrate
the mechanism and the process. For simplicity sake, the drawing shows
a flat ribbon; but, in fact, the ribbon could take on any "extrudable"
cross section.
More interesting to me is the fact that if incorporated into my
current air-heating panel design (Thank you, Iain!), the photovoltaics
could produce electricity at both faces!
Just thought I'd share...
The discussion of panels producing both hot air and hot water started
an interesting (to me) chain of thought...
I already use a slat-type absorber in my panels; and I've built one
air/water heating panel that worked passably well at delivering the
incident energy in whatever mix of warmed air/water was called for.
This morning I was speculating on how convenient it would be if the
slats produced electricity in addition to hot air and hot water - and
how if that could be done at reasonable cost, an all-in-one solution
might be possible. Pure blue-sky stuff - but then a couple of
previously unconnected ideas came together: What if my extruded
aluminum slats could be replaced with extruded silicon slats?
I wasn't particularly troubled that silicon isn't a good candidate for
extrusion processes - but then I thought about how the cylinders (from
which solar cell wafers are cut) are produced; and reasoned that
shapes other than round can be produced by interposing a die at the
top of the molten silicon - and that, depending on the "extruded"
shape, might accelerate the process, eliminate the wafer sawing, and
still provide all of the characteristics required for solar cells.
I've put up a web page at the link below with drawings to illustrate
the mechanism and the process. For simplicity sake, the drawing shows
a flat ribbon; but, in fact, the ribbon could take on any "extrudable"
cross section.
More interesting to me is the fact that if incorporated into my
current air-heating panel design (Thank you, Iain!), the photovoltaics
could produce electricity at both faces!
Just thought I'd share...
