Comments on: Nepalese Teenager Turns Human Hair into Solar Panels

By: jack888

jack888 — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:56:42 +0000

is if there is a coating around the outside of the hair that conducts electricity. But even then, I'm struggling to see how this could possibly work.how to build a solar panel

By: pat

pat — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:49:23 +0000

hair contains melanin, as stated. melanins when doped with iodine turn into semiconductors. solar panels are semiconductor. i dunno, maybe iodine doped hair is photovoltaic, but 18W sounds a bit iffy. maybe 18mW?

By: Solar Energy

Solar Energy — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:31:20 +0000

I think it’s great that people are thinking up wild ways to provide cheaper energy. I don’t know if this is the next big thing, or if it will be something else, but 10 years from now there will be some great idea that works!

By: bernard asane

bernard asane — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:54:36 +0000

plz i need a book that will help me to do some ofthe solar panels in my velage

By: craighyatt

craighyatt — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:27:17 +0000

I’ve collected some info here: http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/hairsolarpanelnepal

By: Solar Book

Solar Book — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:07:44 +0000

“Hair out of a red-headed Scotsman’s beard”? Now that sounds like a fairly specific niche!

The only way I can think of that may work is if there is a coating around the outside of the hair that conducts electricity. But even then, I’m struggling to see how this could possibly work.

Hair today and gone tomorrow? Probably – but I’d love to be proved wrong.

By: craighyatt

craighyatt — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:16:00 +0000

“Uh, guys, Edison used hair for the filament in a series of his attempts at producing a commercial light bulb. OK, didn’t work all that well, but it did work…”

@teqjack Hi. The source I read says that he tried many materials such as paper and cloth, thread, fish line, spruce, hay, cork, and “hair out of a red-headed Scotsman’s beard” but the fact that he tried these materials doesn’t mean any of them are conductors. Edison did experiment with *carbonized* filaments made from different organic materials. I am absolutely positive that human hair isn’t a conductor at the voltages mentioned in this article. One additional comment: It looks to me like the filaments interconnecting the gold-like posts in the photos are thin metal wires, not hairs. I am not certain,but I think the black material behind the plastic backing is the human hair. My guess is that the gold-like posts just connect the cells together. Hard to tell from the photos.

By: Dibyamani

Dibyamani — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:20:03 +0000

This is crap. If everybody is to believe this then everyone should have their head shaved off for fear of being electrocuted by their own hair! Shampoo comanies, watch out.

By: Thebes

Thebes — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:13:13 +0000

Even if this WERE real, the mentioned price point is not so revolutionary as to represent a significant savings in an off-grid residential photovoltaic system. Considering the price of putting a frame around it, and considering that hair probably ages FAR worse in sunlight than silicone wafers, it might not represent ANY savings at all over the lifespan of the panel.

Add to this the cost of charge controller, wiring (low voltage high amperage DC wires tend to be large and expensive), fuses, combiner boxes, panel mounts, batteries, and presumably an inverter… and even if the panels cost only 2 dollars a watt complete and in frames, you can see that the savings for a complete system is under 20%.

I’ll stick with my proven solar panels, I have neighbors who’ve had theirs for 20 years with very little loss of output.

By: teqjack

teqjack — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:36:15 +0000

Fred: “And since when did head hair conduct electricity?”
Craighyatt: “Human hair is non-conductive.”

Uh, guys, Edison used hair for the filament in a series of his attempts at producing a commercial light bulb. OK, didn’t work all that well, but it did work…

Still I agree, this thing does not seem right.

By: FishBottleT

FishBottleT — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:11:31 +0000

It would be neat though. I think that making these alternative energy sources less costly to produce will encourage people and developers to use more of the “green” technologies.

By: semi

semi — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:08:11 +0000

Why does Neatorama have absolutely no critical thinking skills? That’s the only explanation for falling for a hoax like this.

By: craighyatt

craighyatt — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:37:16 +0000

Aw c’mon you guys! This is clearly a hoax. Human hair is non-conductive. To take advantage of melanin’s properties as a semiconductor you’d have to isolate it chemically from the hair. Since hair isn’t a conductor, clearly you can’t just string a bunch of it in a loop. And just to check, I measured a lock of my wife’s jet black hair. Non-conductive. No energy produced under UV illumination. Here is a photo: http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/CraigsProjects/gizhair.j pg?attredirects=0 At best, this boy is fooling himself. At worst, he’s a liar. Shame for publishing this without any fact checking.

By: Xinavera

Xinavera — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:27:32 +0000

My human hair has been turning into solar panels since sometime in the mid-90s. I’m pleased to say that my scalp is now more than 50% solar powered except when I’m wearing a hat.

By: Kalel

Kalel — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:15:29 +0000

Well, they are still combing through the data and have a few knots to work out, so don’t brush them off just yet.

By: fredthesecond

fredthesecond — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:40:30 +0000

The panel as shown in the pictures and as reported must be a hoax. It says it produces 9V (18W). This means the panel produces 2A!! This through a few hairs stretched out over some pins on a board? I don’t think so. And since when did head hair conduct electricity? Maybe at 10000V, not 9V.