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Ingenius solar power lamps !
This is in fact quite simple, but extremely ingenius and effective - the automatic on / off interior solar lamp - invented in Brasil by Mr Alfredo Moser, a mecanics worker in a humble environment !
In 2002, during a long electrical shortage, at Uberaba, São Paulo, Brasil, Mr Alfredo Moser discovered a way to gather sun light in the house through plastic bottles hanging from the roof. First shown at the Globo Reporter in the 25th May 2007.
Alfredo Moser was pressed by a scarce electricity substitution and found out that he could light his house with a bottle of water filled with water and a protection cap made of camera film.
Mr Moser recommends a bottle filled with Clean water, and 2 caps of "sanitary water" to prevent any mold growing.
The bottle is just refracting sunlight very effectively and produces an equivalent light power compared to a 50/60W lamp. In a rainy day, even without much light and direct sun, one still have some light.
Is there a challenge here?
Perhaps a sound scientific approach and refinment could bring new developments and powerfull applications do this ingenius idea !
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3 Comments
#1 by L. Heriberto Castellanos A. on July 14, 2008 at 6:37 a.m.
Really ingenius and very nice; but what about solar heat? and UV Rays?
#2 by Paul Record on July 16, 2008 at 9:50 a.m.
Excellent Idea, I would think about one addition and that is to add a flourescent dye to the water that would release light when there is no sunlight. This would give you some light at dusk. One company selling ' glow in the dark powder' is
http://www.glo-net.com/glow-in-the-dark-powder.html
Excellent application for these plastic bottles which are otherwise used only once. Ingenious (please note the spelling)
I once read about lightpipes which have a 97% reflectivity and can be several metres long, costing several hundred dollars. These plastic bottles can be glued directly into un-insulated roofs in areas where the temperature does not fall below zero - presumably we could add antifreeze to use them here in middle-Europe?
Some sub-titles on the video would be useful.
I reckon a larger (longer) bottle could be used on a thicker roof (i.e. one with insulation) without difficulty.
I once read that a one square metre roof window would give 60'000 lumens in daylight, I know that a regular compact fluorescent might give 800, and the sunlight falling on the top of a regular (6cm) bottle would appear to be about 1680 lumens, and a larger 9cm bottle 3780 lumens (based on the circumference only, and compared to 60'000 lumens/m2) so I can quite understand why the bottles in the video glow so well! I guess that the additional heat transfer incurred compared to the roof shown in the video would be minimal - corrugated roofs do radiate a lot of heat to the interior, Ultraviolet transfer through water - not sure but I guess that not too much would get through.