THE EFFECT OF COLOUR

FILTERS ON SOLAR PANELS Katie Fitzgerald

Expo Project

Grade 7

OBSERVATION

By using a solar light instead of electricity, one

can assist in lightening the load on our

environment.

By using solar panels, we do not pollute our

environment and we lighten the impact of global

warming.

Different solar lights have

different burning times.

SUNLIGHT

Sunlight is an amazing source of energy

SUNLIGHT

Plants use the sun on a daily basis to synthesize sugars and so light energy from the sun is transformed into chemical energy.

When a person is sitting in the sun, your body warms up, and in this manner light energy is transformed into heat energy.

Similar to this, light energy from the sun is transformed into electrical energy to generate a current in solar panels or photo-voltaic cells.

USES OF SOLAR PANELS

Calculators

Lighting and heating of pools

Charging of cellphones

Solar-powered cars and airplanes

OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

Sunlight contains energy and when sunlight

touches an object, it can be transformed into a

different type of energy.

OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

Most Solar panels have a layer of silicon crystals

that generates an electric current when sunlight

shines on it

OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

An electric current is generated when an electron

inside an element moves and heat is generated

when electrons remain on one place and vibrates.

OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

When sunlight shines on the layer of silicon on

the solar panel, electrons inside the silicon

crystals start to move and an electric current is

generated

COLOUR AND LIGHT

White light is a mixture of different colours:

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Violet

When white light, like sunlight, shines through a prism, a rainbow of colours is generated on the other side.

COLOUR AND LIGHT

Different colours of light have different

wavelengths and light that we can see is called

the visible spectrum.

COLOUR AND LIGHT

The longer the wavelength of a wave, the less

energy the wave will have or a lower frequency.

COLOUR AND LIGHT

The colour of any object is determined by the type

of light that is sent to our eyes.

COLOUR AND LIGHT

Many photographers use different coloured

lenses to reflect light of certain colours and

absorb light of another colour, creating a

different type of colour photo.

EXPERIMENT

MATERIALS

7 x Consol “Solar Jar” – Glasbottle, Solar panel,

LED Light – one bottle is used as control

MATERIALS

Coloured cellophane acts as light filters – Purple,

Blue, Red, Green and Yellow

METHOD

Different coloured cellophane is attached to the

different bottles

METHOD

The lights are charged for two hours in the sun.

METHOD

The burning time of the lights were measured (in

hours)

RESULTS

Wavelength of Light Colour of Filter Burning Time (Hours)

400nm – Violet/Purple Purple 4 hours 12 min

475 nm – Blue Blue 4 hours 30 min

550 nm – Green Green 5 hours 34 min

600 nm – Yellow Yellow 5 hours 45 min

650 nm – Red Red 1 hour 13 min

RESULTS

White light – Normal light without filter served as

control and burns for six hours.

DISCUSSION

From our experiment, we can have the following

derivations:

Different wavelengths of light made different

amounts of energy available;

The colour filters only allowed light of the same

colour to pass through the filter;

Longer wavelengths of light passed more energy to

the atoms and caused the light to burn for a longer

time.

DISCUSSION

The red filter let the least amount of light pass

and the light burned for the shortest time.

It is possible that the red light did not have

enough energy to excite the electrons on the

silicon atoms.

DISCUSSION

00:00

01:12

02:24

03:36

04:48

06:00

Violet Blue Green Yellow Red

The Burning Time of Solar Lights with Different

Coloured Filters

CONCLUSION

Results support the hypothesis – Different

coloured filters has a different effect on the

burning time of a solar light.

Therefore it is better not to use coloured solar

lights.

THANK YOU THE END