Researchers in England have discovered that the efficiency of solar panels can be increased by 45% when the panel is exposed to pop or rock music. Visit to understand more about solar panels and solar cells.
Music has long been known to stimulate brain activity. The blood pressure and heart rate are also improved during music listening. This is now the first time research has suggested that music can actually “improve” some processes in solar cells. This is because of the way music affects our muscles, which make up a large part of the function of healthy solar cells.
Solar Cells Are More Efficient With Pop Music
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College London have created a device that converts sunlight into electrical charges. The device is made up of billions of tiny cones which are covered with a polymer to create a device that can be used in many applications such as solar-powered batteries.
What is The piezoelectric effect?
The piezoelectric effect is a physical phenomenon that occurs when certain materials are placed under pressure. When the piezoelectric material is subjected to pressure, an electric voltage is generated. This effect was first discovered by Pierre Curie in 1880 and since then, many studies have been conducted.
English researchers are building on this idea by finding out how sound waves can influence solar cells. An idea that they themselves expected little from at first.
When Durrant and his colleagues studied the results in detail, they found that sound waves had an unexpectedly large impact on energy production. The team found that noise from crashing waves can cause a resonance effect which is 300% higher than expected. The research may lead to new ways to boost solar cell efficiency.
“This is a nice example of the unexpected consequences of our noise pollution,” said Durrant. “It’s true that waves crashing on the beach break up into smaller waves and enable more energy to be extracted from the sun, but these waves make so much noise that they also extract more energy than you would expect.” The research was published in Nature Energy.
Read also: Can Headphones Improve the Quality of Music?
Pop music and its effect on solar cells
James Dunn and his team realized that solar cells respond best to higher tones such as those present in rock and pop music. Dunn, whose research was funded by the U.S. military, started testing different frequencies in 2010 and found that “music with the natural resonance of rock, pop, and punk had a positive effect on cells’ ability to generate power.” Music with lower tones such as country and classical music caused energy generation to drop off significantly.
The human ear is tuned to certain frequencies, and this tuning affects the way we understand what we hear. This phenomenon has been known for a long time, but it is more recently that scientists have begun to explore its implications.
Some scientists have discovered that a certain amount of sound is sufficient to improve the performance of a solar cell. This discovery has led to the introduction of a new method for machine learning, which will significantly benefit our understanding of solar cell efficiencies.
The findings open up the possibility of harvesting energy from everyday vibrations and movement that would otherwise be wasted.