THE EFFECT OF COLOUR
FILTERS ON SOLAR PANELS
Katie Fitzgerald
Expo Project
Grade 7
OBSERVATION
By using a solar light instead of electricity, one
can assist in lightening the load on our
environment.
 By using solar panels, we do not pollute our
environment and we lighten the impact of global
warming.
 Different solar lights have
different burning times.

SUNLIGHT

Sunlight is an amazing source of energy
SUNLIGHT



Plants use the sun on a
daily basis to synthesize
sugars and so light energy
from the sun is
transformed into chemical
energy.
When a person is sitting in
the sun, your body warms
up, and in this manner
light energy is transformed
into heat energy.
Similar to this, light
energy from the sun is
transformed into electrical
energy to generate a
current in solar panels or
photo-voltaic cells.
USES OF SOLAR PANELS
Calculators
 Lighting and heating of pools
 Charging of cellphones
 Solar-powered cars and airplanes

OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

Sunlight contains energy and when sunlight
touches an object, it can be transformed into a
different type of energy.
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

Most Solar panels have a layer of silicon crystals
that generates an electric current when sunlight
shines on it
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

An electric current is generated when an electron
inside an element moves and heat is generated
when electrons remain on one place and vibrates.
OPERATION OF A SOLAR PANEL

When sunlight shines on the layer of silicon on
the solar panel, electrons inside the silicon
crystals start to move and an electric current is
generated
COLOUR AND LIGHT

White light is a mixture of different colours:







Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet
When white light, like sunlight, shines through a
prism, a rainbow of colours is generated on the
other side.
COLOUR AND LIGHT

Different colours of light have different
wavelengths and light that we can see is called
the visible spectrum.
COLOUR AND LIGHT

The longer the wavelength of a wave, the less
energy the wave will have or a lower frequency.
COLOUR AND LIGHT

The colour of any object is determined by the type
of light that is sent to our eyes.
COLOUR AND LIGHT

Many photographers use different coloured
lenses to reflect light of certain colours and
absorb light of another colour, creating a
different type of colour photo.
EXPERIMENT
MATERIALS

7 x Consol “Solar Jar” – Glasbottle, Solar panel,
LED Light – one bottle is used as control
MATERIALS

Coloured cellophane acts as light filters – Purple,
Blue, Red, Green and Yellow
METHOD

Different coloured cellophane is attached to the
different bottles
METHOD

The lights are charged for two hours in the sun.
METHOD

The burning time of the lights were measured (in
hours)
RESULTS
Wavelength of Light
Colour of Filter
Burning Time (Hours)
400nm – Violet/Purple Purple
4 hours 12 min
475 nm – Blue
Blue
4 hours 30 min
550 nm – Green
Green
5 hours 34 min
600 nm – Yellow
Yellow
5 hours 45 min
650 nm – Red
Red
1 hour 13 min
RESULTS
White light – Normal light without filter served as
control and burns for six hours.
DISCUSSION

From our experiment, we can have the following
derivations:
Different wavelengths of light made different
amounts of energy available;
 The colour filters only allowed light of the same
colour to pass through the filter;
 Longer wavelengths of light passed more energy to
the atoms and caused the light to burn for a longer
time.

DISCUSSION
The red filter let the least amount of light pass
and the light burned for the shortest time.
 It is possible that the red light did not have
enough energy to excite the electrons on the
silicon atoms.

DISCUSSION
The Burning Time of Solar Lights with Different
Coloured Filters
06:00
04:48
03:36
02:24
01:12
00:00
Violet
Blue
Green
Yellow
Red
CONCLUSION
Results support the hypothesis – Different
coloured filters has a different effect on the
burning time of a solar light.
 Therefore it is better not to use coloured solar
lights.

THANK YOU
THE END