Solar Panels Made from Human Hair?
In a story seemingly ripped from the pages of the National Enquirer, the UK’s Daily Mail reports that a Nepalese teenager has invented a solar panel that uses human hair instead of silicone as the conductor in solar panels. According to 18 year old Milan Karki, his solar panel design can be produced for as little as $38.
But if they were mass-produced, Milan says they could be sold for less than half that price, which could make them a quarter of the price of those already on the market.
Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, right now there are no other independent reports confirming this potentially ground-breaking energy source. Until then, we’d probably better hold our breath.
Image: James Cridland Creative Commons license
Story via the Daily Mail
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September 11th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
This story is popping up more frequently now. I haven’t seen anything substantiating the claims yet.
I do want to put in a little correction… I do this because I do like this web site and it’s community and want all of us representing correctly on the subjects we enjoy.
Silicon is a very common element on the periodic table similar to metal. (metalloid)
Silicone is a man made compound that is heat resistant and non stick.
It is easy to confuse the two without knowing the difference.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
This story has been discredited as an internet hoax. Just Google nepal solar hair hoax to find a number of articles debunking this claim.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
According to one debunking site, confusion between “silicone” and “silicon” might be behind some of the faulty science behind this invention. A non-peer-reviewed paper published online at “Nature Precedings” titled “Photoelectrochemical Properties of Melanin” mentions “cooper wires (covered with silicon) where attach to the electrodes by glued them down”. This actually refers to standard *silicone* insulated test leads, but has been interpreted incorrectly as “copper wires coated with silicon”. The Nature Precedings paper is nonsense, as the authors confuse a battery with a solar cell, but based on language in some of the interviews with the students from Nepal, it appears they may have used the Nature Precedings paper as a source. A detailed analysis of the hair solar panel has shown that the science behind it is flawed and that it is not a viable invention.