questions about building a solar powered water heater for a science project!?
Ok i have this science project in two weeks….it has to deal with renewable sources and it’s supposed to be a better version of what is already invented. I decided to build a solar powered water heater….possibly a small portable one that could be used on camping trips or something?
1) how long do you think this will take me to build?
2) how big will the solar panel have to be?
3) where can i get a solar panel?
4) do you have any good websites on how to build a small heater? (all the ones i find are huge ones for powering a heater of a house)
You won’t be buying the panel because anything manufactured is going to be too big. If it going to be for camping then it can’t involve a pump or batteries as being too heavy. The best answer would be coils of copper tubing soldered to a copper plate and painted black and two containers (plastic bags?) connected by flexible hose so you could raise one and cause water to flow through the panel to the other. That would be moderately heavy. So for your project you might look for aluminum tubing and sheet and see how to attach the tubing to the sheet (soldering works badly on aluminum) that will conduct heat from the sheet to the tubing (some glues insulate, almost all are poor conductors)
Or you might see what happens if you just take two black plastic sheets and either heat seal lines so water poured in the stop has to wander back and forth to get out, taking heat from the sun as it goes or plastic tubing inside the sheets doing the same. Less efficient that metal but easier to carry and less weight.
May 6th, 2010 at 8:00 am
They have them at Walmart for about $5 in the camping section. They don’t need solar panels, making them black is enough to heat the water to a nice temperature.
References :
May 6th, 2010 at 8:17 am
You won’t be buying the panel because anything manufactured is going to be too big. If it going to be for camping then it can’t involve a pump or batteries as being too heavy. The best answer would be coils of copper tubing soldered to a copper plate and painted black and two containers (plastic bags?) connected by flexible hose so you could raise one and cause water to flow through the panel to the other. That would be moderately heavy. So for your project you might look for aluminum tubing and sheet and see how to attach the tubing to the sheet (soldering works badly on aluminum) that will conduct heat from the sheet to the tubing (some glues insulate, almost all are poor conductors)
Or you might see what happens if you just take two black plastic sheets and either heat seal lines so water poured in the stop has to wander back and forth to get out, taking heat from the sun as it goes or plastic tubing inside the sheets doing the same. Less efficient that metal but easier to carry and less weight.
References :
May 6th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I know they have these solar powered water heaters for houses in the area where i live. Basically they are pipes filled with water under some darkened glass. And everything is black or a dark color. The water heated from the sun rises up and then is used by the house. (They have to be drained for winter though)
But if you are talking about maybe boiling water, look into solar ovens. I’ve seen videos of pretty much nothing more than a cardboard box inside painted black and some clear material actually fry and egg or something similar.
Basically, the sun in powerful enough to heat up food items without having to convert it to electricity then to heat.
References :