Free Energy

Hman said:

Apparently a 18 year old in Nepal who was trying to figure out how to make a cheap solar panel has found that human hair works in place of Silicon.  This is more of a news announcement than a description of the circuit but there is a picture of the device.

It would be nice to have a description of the circuit, or at least an explanation of how head hair acts as a semiconductor.

Especially, how the hair compares in function to a silicon solar cell.

--Lee

Melanin;

Melanins, in the synthetic sense, are "rigid-backbone" conductive polymers composed of polyacetylene, polypyrrole, and polyaniline "Blacks" and their mixed copolymers. The simplest melanin is polyacetylene, and some fungal melanins are pure polyacetylene.

In 1963, DE Weiss and coworkers reported high electrical conductivity in a melanin, iodine-doped and oxidized polypyrrole "Black". They achieved the quite high conductivity of 1 Ohm/cm. A decade later, John McGinness, and coworkers reported a high conductivity "ON" state in a voltage-controlled solid-state threshold switch made with DOPA melanin. Further, this material emitted a flash of light—electroluminescence—when it switched. Melanin also shows negative resistance, a classic property of electronically-active conductive polymers. Likewise, melanin is the best sound-absorbing material known due to strong electron-phonon coupling. This may be related to melanin's presence in the inner ear.

 
Melanin voltage-controlled switch, an "active" organic polymer electronic device from 1974. Smithsonian Chip collection .These early discoveries were "lost" until the recent emergence of such melanins in device applications, particularly electroluminescent displays. In 2000, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists for their subsequent 1977 (re)discovery and development of such conductive organic polymers. In an essential reprise of the work by Weiss et al., these polymers were oxidized, iodine-doped "polyacetylene black" melanins. There is no evidence the Nobel committee was aware of the almost identical prior report by Weiss et al. of passive high conductivity in iodinated polypyrrole black or of switching and high electrical conductivity in DOPA melanin and related organic semiconductors. The melanin organic electronic device is now in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History's "Smithsonian Chips" collection of historic solid-state electronic devices.

Although synthetic melanin (commonly referred to as BSM, or "black synthetic matter") is made up of 3-6 oligomeric units linked together—the so-called "protomolecule"—there is no evidence that naturally occurring biopolymer (BCM, for "black cell matter") mimics this structure. However, since there is no reason to believe that natural melanin does not belong to the category of the polyarenes and polycationic polyenes, like pyrrol black and acetylene black, it is necessary to review all the chemical and biological analytic data gathered to date in the study of natural melanins (eumelanins, pheomelanins, allomelanins)."

Evidence exists in support of a highly cross-linked heteropolymer bound covalently to matrix scaffolding melanoproteins. It has been proposed that the ability of melanin to act as an antioxidant is directly proportional to its degree of polymerization or molecular weight. Suboptimal conditions for the effective polymerization of melanin monomers may lead to formation of lower-molecular-weight, pro-oxidant melanin that is has been implicated in the causation and progression of macular degeneration and melanoma. Signaling pathways that upregulate melanization in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) also may be implicated in the downregulation of rod outer segment phagocytosis by the RPE. This phenomenon has been attributed in part to foveal sparing in macular degeneration.

the below picture;

Melanin voltage-controlled switch, an "active" organic polymer electronic device from 1974. Smithsonian Chip collection

Get a long haired dog put a vest with round metal contacts on it and let it play around in the sun hooked with a battery charger under it's chin. Gives new meaning to the term "Puppy Power". 

@ Hman

Very big breakthrough. Thanks for posting. I doubt that he is using the hair. He is probably dissolving the hair in acid and converting it to a plastic semiconductor and then doping that on one surface to create a PN junction. I hope he will be giving the details.

EDIT: I guess I was wrong. In the article it says "People can replace the hair easily themselves" so he is actually using the hair.

Ah!

Then there will be no free energy for me 

Anyone developed solar cells that run on methane gas?

I read recently that a fungus had been found growing in a extreme radiation environment.It turned out that ionizing radiation was knocking out electrons in melanin pigment in the fungus and allowing the fungus to use this as a source of energy.There is more to melanin than meets the eye?Triffid

Hi Lee.
post 4? ...
...Melanin is a photosensitive chemical that changes UV to Infrared, it is a conductor and has been used in the semiconductor industry.  ...

Hey Jerry,
I think I'm beginning to understand.  But, in changing UV to IR, are electrons generated or released?
That might be the basis of the inventor's assertion.
--Lee