During this topic we had to make 3 solar cells. One of the solar cells would be made of blackberry dye. Another would be made out of raspberry dye and the last one would be made of ruthenium dye which is very expensive.
During this investigation we needed gloves, a lab coat and safety glasses had to be worn at all times during the experiment. Mathew was our chemistry teacher for the experiment and he does research on solar cells and what molecules absorb the most light to create more energy. We soaked the glass with titanium alloy on it in the dyes.
We left it for around 2 hours and came back to shave some of it off so there was only an area of 1cm
2 . You would want the square to be closer to one side than the other for a better absorption of energy. Then we took them outside to test them.
The raspberry turned out to do better than the blackberry by a couple of millivolts but were close enough to say they both give the same amount of energy absorbed, it was just affected probably the way it was made. The ruthenium beat them both by a long shot and reacts by far more than the berry dyes but is still to expensive to save the Earth!
These solar cells are better than the ones you see outside because the ones that outside have to have direct sun light and these can absorb light inside and on cloudy days.
By Devin Marchiondo
Almost everybody has gone to England, leaving behind just enough people to update the blog. Here are some pics from this morning as they were about to leave for the airport, all looking very excited about getting to sample some real English delights like fish and chips, afternoon tea and, of course, Marmite! We hope they remember to bring some back for us...
It promises to be a very interesting and fun-packed week with trips to the Globe Theatre for a Shakespeare workshop, Macbeth in the open air (let's hope they have better weather than us here in Switzerland!), the Imperial War Museum, the Tate Modern, the Trocadero, Covent Garden... the list goes on.
We hope you enjoy your trip!
