Ideas

Perpetual energy generator. The laws of thermodynamics are quite clear why this will not work. That is if you are thinking that having a solar cell power a light bulb that powers the solar cell (powering itself).

He seems to be saying "use a solar cell to charge your phone or iPod, from the available light."

The disadvantage I see is that most portable devices are usually in a pocket or holder, and get hit with practically no light.

He implies there would be no rechargeable battery - a small light solar cell will not generate enough continuous current to run these devices without a rechargeable battery.

You used to be able to buy an electronic calculator with a solar cell, that sat on your desk and didn't have batteries at all. It did, however have capacitors that acted like a short term battery, to provide power when the solar cell was in low light, or you were doing lots of calculations.

iPods and phones draw heaps more current than a simple calculator.

google 'wearable computing' for details of using a solar cell/panel on your clothes/backpack to recharge your portable devices.

solzero also doesn't say how he plans to commercialize this idea...

solar loaders are commercially available...

There are pocked sized solar chargers and solar cells mended into the fabric of things like laptop bags an backpacks. So, its been done for the most part.

Listening to a Vancouver station this morning (weird news) Japanese company has made solar bra, for charging ipods and cell phones. Just a prototype. Duel function!

i read that to maxman

I found it under unusual-bras at pop gloss:
http://www.popgloss....om/list=unusual-bras

thank you for your comments but i'm not presenting a solar charger for mobile device (which uses natural solar light) i'm talking about a device based on photovoltaic cell illuminated by artificial light ... until now i haven't see any of these on the market.
as first step i would like to use one portable solar charger , unmount the cells , re insert the cells in a box like a small can of beverage or smaller if possible , insert in this device a couple of high performance led lights (like the one that can be found in the maglite) plug the system to a battery charger + a battery) illuminate the system using power coming from battery and measure the remaining power that can be used for an ipod for ex .
who wants to try ???
kind regards
solzero

hit'em kevin

I dont know what the possibilities are (like not knowing the physics) but if you used the light (infrared or something like it) to move power to a photo cell which generates power, then you can move electricity without having a wire.

Not exactly what you are defining, but similar. If we could use a light source as the source of energy (the light source plugged in) and power some unplugged usage, that might be something the market would love to have.

LivingtheDream
Turn the Key and Smile

Not convinced.

Am I dreaming ? Even if you will achieve 100% efficiency (... and I bet you will not) this will be still a nonsense.
Solar cells are called "SOLAR" , becouse they use energy that was not manufactured already (energy of the sun). This is waste of energy.

Sorry, if I just don't understand what you ment.

I'm afraid the laws of thermodynamics work against you here - the first law:

"In any process, the total energy of the universe remains the same."

In other words, there's no such thing as a free lunch! If all of the energy emitted by the light source was captured by the PV cell and turned into electricity, you'd still have exactly the same amount of energy - ie, enough to power the light source and no more.

In fact it's even worse than that. A typical solar cell has an efficiency of no more than 20%, meaning that only 20% of the light energy that falls on it is converted to electrical energy. Actually then, you only get back enough energy to power 20% of the light source and you've lost energy in the cycle.

You can try it if you like, but it won't work - sorry about that!

While all the comments around laws of thermodynamics have merits. There is also another way to look at the problem posed by solzero. There is no reason why energy cannot be recycled. This is also a well established law of physics --> convert one form of energy into another.

So I would suggest another way (also coined "hybrid PV" by me) to approach this idea...

Step 1: USE first generation PV technologies to convert sun's energy into electricity (stored or not).
Step 2: This electricity should be used to power artificial lights.
Step 3: Use third generation PV technologies (amorphous/nano etc.) to convert the artificial light into electricity.

While this does not exactly meet the idea suggested by solzero, this is a promising way to recycle artificial light into something very useful.

Cheers!