Thermoelectric Solar Panel

Thermoelectric Solar Panel Of all available sources of energy on earth, the light of the sun is the most ubiquitous; however, as a source of heat it is somewhat difficult to utilize due to its diffuse nature. Direct sunlight provides roughly a kilowatt of power to every square meter of an illuminated surface, but without some method of containing this energy, the vast majority of it is either reflected, carried away by convection, or re-emitted as infrared radiation. It follows then, that if these losses could be mitigated and a sensitive thermocouple were used to convert the trapped heat into electricity, a solar panel could be made which requires no complex materials or construction methods to manufacture. Naturally, this is not a new idea; thermoelectric solar panels were developed throughout much of the early 20th century, most notably by pioneers George Cove (in the 1900s) and Maria Telkes (in the 1930s). However, almost all of these devices utilized the semiconductor zinc antim ... Read full article.