How To Build a Solar Air Heater

In this experiment you learn how to build your own solar air heater.
Using the sun to heat water is a very cost effective way to save energy. Typically payback on even the most expensive systems is under ten years, with DIY Solar Water Heaters paying for themselves in just a few months. Similar techniques can be used to make a Solar Space Heater - a device which warms the air inside a room or building.

Solar Garage Heater

Pictured above is a simple small passive solar heater made from recycled aluminium drinks cans and used to heat a garage. If the building to be heated is well insultated, a solar heater such as this can lift the temperature by a significant number of degrees. A larger heater or a number of similar heaters can be used to heat larger spaces, or to heat smaller spaces to a higher temperature.

Offcuts of 2 x 4 and a sheet of plywood were used to build a box to tightly hold 5 rows of 10 black-painted aluminium drinks cans. The inside of the box was then sealed using caulk to prevent hot air from escaping. Cold air is drawn in from a hole at the bottom of the box, and the heated air emerges from the top passing through a pipe into the garage to be heated. A plexi-glass sheet was glued to the box to let sunlight in but not let the hot air escape.

Click here to find out more about this basic almost free garage heat project. Read on to find out how to make your own solar heater.

Building a Solar Space Heater

This type of solar space heater works by drawing the air to be heated into the bottom can of a column of cans. The air is then heated inside the cans by the sun's energy and the hot air within them rises upwards to be fed into a pipe which re-enters the building to be heated.

First of all make a box out of whatever scrap materials you have to hand. Set the dimensions to that the width of the interior of the box is exactly the same as the width of however many columns of cans you would like to use in your heater.
The height of the box should be the same as however many cans you would like to have in each column plus a few centimeters.

For increased efficiency, you may choose to insulate the box to prevent heat escaping through the plywood. If so, size your box so that the cans and insulation will fit snuggly.

For the air to pass through a column of cans, holes must be drilled into them. Remember that there is already a hole at the top of each can out of which the drink is poured. That just leaves holes at the bottom of each can to be drilled.

In the bottom can of each column a 1/2 to 1 inch hole is drilled in the side. (see image below)

The rest of the cans in the column have a similiarly sized hole drilled into the bottom. See image below)

Then the cans of each column are glued together using caulk or silicon adhesive and painted using black paint to help them absorb the sun's energy. Barbecue or fireplace/stove paint is excellent for this as it will not flake off, but any marine grade paint will do a similar job - just make sure it has a totally matt finish.

The inside of the box must also be painted with the same paint before the columns of cans are glued into position using caulk or silicon adhesive. The outside of the box should be treated with preservative, varnish, or paint to help it survive the elements for many years.

Ideally the whole unit will be sealed with a sheet of tempered glass - of the type used in car windscreens. This glass is very strong and resilient to heat. However, tempered glass (unless you can find and recycle a sheet) is also very expensive. Therefore plexi-glass (plastic) can be used, but it will degrade far more quickly and become opaque blocking out the sunlight.

A hole at the top of the box acts as the hot air outlet and can be connected to the building/room to be heated using an insulated pipe.

Pictured above is an alternative design in which the cans are all joined together in a snake. The illustrations shows an array of just 3 x 3 cans for simplicity however hundreds of cans could be joined in this way to make a larger heater.

Air inside this snake would rise much more slowly through the heater (than was the case in the previous design) since it has a much longer path to travel, and it is obstructed from rising straight upwards. Therefore the air can be heated to a much greater temperature.

A PV Electric Solar Panel could be used to power a small fan to drive air through the snake. The final temperature achieved would be lower, but having a large quantity of 30 degree Celcius air entering a room is much better than a much smaller quantity of 50 degree Celcius air.It is a very good experiment!

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In Singapore's Skyline Soon Will Rise a Green City

Green buildings,green houses and now green city. In conclusion our planet will be transformed in a green planet!!,and that is a good thing.Today i discover that in Singapore skyline will rise a green city!wow!!,for few seconds i was astonished because i never heard before some news.

Adding greenery to Singapore’s skyline, here is a design that won an international competition to design a green complex. Architecture firm Partners + Foster is the winner of this design that aims to fill an entire city block in downtown Singapore. This complex will be on the leading edge of green design and will incorporate arrays of solar cells on the buildings’ facades.

Ribbon-like canopies (also covered with thin-film solar cells) will start at the base of the complex, and rise up the exposed east and west elevations of the towers, where they form a series of vertical louvers. These will filter the sun and will transform the towers into a series of vertically linked green spaces.
The buildings’ slanted facades are oriented to catch the prevailing winds and direct air flow down to cool the ground level spaces. The canopy will protect a series of internal streets, sunken courtyards and tiered gardens lined shops and cafes.

In this complex many other green elements are incorporated: there’s a geothermal heating system, a huge ice storage system for cooling, chilled beams and ceilings and a rainwater harvesting system.
I have a question: it is heaven on earth?











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Green Invention-Pedal Powered Washing Machine

This invention is easy to make ,widely available and makes sure you stay in shape.The pedal-powered washing machine is something that is nice to have around your home, especially when you want to save bills. It is simple to use and the rotation mechanism of the entire system is not too complicated. It is very easy to achieve the required speed and would not need much of a workout either.
In every year i heard more and more people talk about this machine,yes,i grant you that is very interesting invention.

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Solar Balloons Could Power Remote Regions

Many remote areas of the world are looking towards the sun to provide them with energy that is needed for their sustenance.
A group from Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology has produce solar energy balloons as a means of harnessing the sun’s energy in exactly such remote areas. This devices may be a cheap way to power remote areas lacking either the land or the infrastructure to accommodate “traditional”-type large power stations.These balloons look very cool like some giant structures from a science-fiction movie but these use solar energy to help the people.

These amazing solar balloons are covered with thin-film solar panels, and can float at heights of up to several hundred meters. The electricity generated is fed via a wire cable into an inverter capable of converting it for household use. Initial research has shown that a typical 3 Meter balloon should cost around $4,000, and be capable of producing around 1Kw of energy. This roughly compares to the same output from 25 square meters of traditional solar panels, at a cost of $10,000.
From 2009 these balloons will be available and in my opinion this is an good and interesting idea,with this more an more people from remote regions will be helped.

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World’s First Integrated Wind Turbines !

For the first time the Bahrain World Trade Center made history today as its pioneering wind turbines turned together. They are expected to generate 11 to 15 percent of the whole structure’s power.The three 29m-diameter turbine blades on Bahrain’s iconic landmark are expected to operate approximately 50% of the time.

The turbines will undergo detailed analysis and optimization to determine their actual electricity generation potential. The elliptical shapes of the two buildings of the architecture funnel and even accelerate the wind towards the turbines. And there’ll be no shortage of wind too, what with the Bahrain World Trade Center in direct path of the onshore breeze blowing from the Gulf coast.
The turbines work as expected because the cost of turbines was reduced to 3.5 percent of the whole project’s.With this project the world become more green.

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A Solar-Powered Hydrogen Fueling Station Opened In Woodland

Right now this is the greenest clean energy source that one would get on the planet.This station, opened in Woodland, California does not even produce any emissions and it does not use any kind of fossil fuel.It is the greenest power station that is available for a refill on the planet.The station is a joint venture between the Ford Motor Company, British Petroleum, U.S. Department of Energy and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).

This hydrogen fueling station works on the principle that the solar panel uses solar energy to provide the required power for the process of electrolysis. Then it subsequently produces hydrogen from water and that can be used as fuel for cars. The solar panels produce 80 kilowatts of electricity, which is about enough energy to power 40 homes or 14 fuel-cell vehicles. Currently it will be used to power 7 fuel cell vehicles from Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).

With this filling station we make a big step in our environmental future.I am glad to hear that in this state more vehicles run on hydrogen powered fuel cells.In my opinion with this vehicles we help the environment to become more cleaner.

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Premiere - World's First Organic LED !

A leading OLED manufacturer named Osram, recently partnered with well-known artist Ingo Maurer to create the first OLED lamp.Ingo take from Osram ten small OLED panels to use to create his lamp.

And since the panels are limited edition and Maurer is a very famous and respected artist, this might be the most expensive table lamp in history.
Osram has a team of over 50 scientists working on OLEDs right now. Though LED lights still have almost no market share, and OLEDs are more advanced and expensive than LEDs, Osram believes that their investment will pay off.
Dr. Bernhard Stapp, Head of Solid State Lighting at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors said that in the future it will be possible to use OLEDs as flexible or transparent light sources. A transparent OLED over a window in a roof would be able to allow natural light in during the day and provide fascinating illumination for the room at nigh.

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Mississippi River Will Power 1.5 M Homes !

The Mississippi River will be producing 1600 megawatts of constant, free energy-free emissions by 2017.Free Flow Power is the company who create this project. They will install tens of thousands f in-stream turbines at 59 sites stretching from St Louis to the Gulf of Mexico.

Many turbines even hundreds would be installed at each site and, all together, they would produce enough power to eliminate the need for two large coal-fired power plants.For the moment this project will be able to make some steps.First: Federal Energy Regulatory Comission has to approve the project and the second : they have to complete a detailed environmental analysis of the project.

This analysis could take three years.Free Flow Power has yet to demonstrate that their systems can operate at costs below that of natural gas power. If the project doesn't produce economical power, financing the project will be impossible.Free Flow Power, as far as we can tell, hasn't actually tested their turbines outside the laboratory.
In fact, Free Flow Power is not the only company working on in-stream hydroelectric because in New York a pilot project has already been installed.In my opinion this project will be approved,because it is very necessary for our environment.

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First Automated Solar Water Timer

Here is a wonderful gadget to help you in your garden,named Revolve.This is an automated solar powered water timer for your garden and it can still run on batteries if you do live in a place where the sun does not shine all too well.
Revolve looks more like a prototype for now, that could use some fine tuning from a commercial project firm. But considering that it was just a model in a graduate program, it is still doing pretty well. It uses a solar panel to charge itself up and it has an LCD screen for display.

When is in standby mode, no power is going to the LCD so very little power is being used and when the sun is out it does not need any external current source or even batteries.Considering 99% of gardens are bathed in sun, this makes it an ideal for the purpose.
This gadget have a modern design, very nice and is an aesthetically pleasing functional water timer.This will help the planet to being more green.

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More About Solar Cars

This video explain how and where solar cars works. This solar-powered car is best used in countries that receive a consistent stream of sunlight all year round,for more see the video:

The New Hydrogen Fuel Cell Controller

Intelligent Energy and Prodrive has developed a new production of hydrogen fuel cell controller,this unit called PP150 and is being used to control a 50 kW fuel cell system developed by Intelligent Energy. For the UK fuel cell industry this is the first.

One of the project’s aims was to ensure that the fuel cell could be started at sub-zero temperatures. To meet these demands, the control electronics went through a number of design iterations. Initial development was carried out using Prodrive’s rapid prototyping ECU, UP200 which provides a robust, off the shelf hardware platform with built in Simulink® compatibility. This enabled Intelligent Energy to quickly develop their core algorithms and validate them on real world hardware. Following this initial stage Prodrive developed a prototype ECU known as the DP200 which included bespoke hardware for the fuel cell application but retained sufficient flexibility to support development changes.
The price is around £250 per unit .

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Electricity Generated by The Microfiber Fabric

Researchers from the U.S. have produce a microfiber fabric that generates its own electricity.This generate enough current to power a MP3 music player or a cell phone.
Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology said that the fiber-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from the physical movement.

The nanogenerator takes advantage of the semiconductive properties of zinc oxide nanowires tiny wires 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair embedded into the fabric. The wires are formed into pairs of microscopic brush-like structures, shaped like a baby-bottle brush.

One of the fibers in each pair is coated with serves and gold as an electrode. As the bristles brush together through a person's body movement, the wires convert the mechanical motion into electricity.

The fabric could harness power from its wearer simply walking around if it's made into s shirt.
This team has basically demonstrated the base mechanism to generate usable electricity from a fabric and they make a big step to future.

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More About Solar Panels

Photovoltaic solar panels generate electricity by the photovoltaic effect.This is discovered by 19yr old Edmund Becquerel in 1839.What is photovoltaic effec? is the phenomenon that certain materials produce electic current when they are exposed to light.
For traditional PV solar panels a semiconductor PN junction is manufactured in which two halves of one pure silicon crystal are doped with two different dopants . One half of the crystal is left electron deficient, and one half is left with an excess of electrons . The dopants in the semiconductor lead to an electric field across the junction between the two halves of the crystal with electrons able to travel in one direction only - from the electron rich half to the electron poor half.

Electrons move from the negative side to the positive side of the crystal recombining with holes.
As the silicon atoms themselves do not move, any electrons without holes to cover in the p-type side remain negatively charged and any holes which remain uncovered by electrons in the n-type side are left positively charged, and. This leaves positive material close to the junction in the n-type side, and negative material close to the junction in the p-type side with a potential between the two sides of around 0.6-0.7 volts in a silicon pn junction.

The light from the sun is made up of packets of energy called Photons. Every photon carries an amount of energy corresponding to its wavelength of light. When a photon strikes a solar cell it can do one of three things: be absorbed,pass straight through or be reflected. When the photon is absorbed, its energy is absorbed by an electron in an atom of the solar cell enabling it to escape from its normal position, cross the junction and fill a hole. The electrons then flow through a load , and complete the circuit by recombining with the holes they left behind. In so doing energy from the sunlight has been extracted and used at an efficiency of around 5-15%.
In some words , you found more about solar panels.

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How Work a Compressed Air Car

This video explain how work a compressed air car :

New Solar Collector That Can Even Work At Night

Idaho National Laboratory researchers have produce a new solar collector, that is so effective, it can even work at night.

With this new technology, millions of extremely small twists of metal are molded into banks of "microantennas", which can be placed on almost any material, including plastic sheets. These spiral shaped "microantennas" are about 1/25 the width of a human hair. They are so small that they resonate from the interaction with the sun's infrared rays. This resonation can be translated into energy. During the day, the Earth soaks up a lot of this infrared energy, which is then radiated out at night , enabling these microantennas to collect power even after the sun has set.
This conventional solar panels can convert into electricity about %20 of what hits and the researchers believe that they can hit an efficiency rating of about 80%.But we have a problem with this conventional solar panels,they are currently expensive to produce because the rely on high-grade silicon, this becoming increasingly expensive.
The good this is that they are working on it.

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