A solar collector was made by Americans

The United States has created the world's first transparent colorless solar collector. It is worth mentioning that, unlike solar panels, solar collectors are needed to gather primarily heat rather than electricity. This is an important difference, though outwardly the two devices look almost the same.

Attempts to create transparent solar collector made long ago. The idea of ??all projects was the creation of the reservoir, which would look like ordinary glass. Part of the scientists were able to do it 5 years ago, when the mass of the light came the first transparent collectors. Their only problem was that they all looked like colored or tinted glass. The efficiency of such collectors in this case is about 7%.

At that time a research team from the University of Michigan was able to make a colorless, transparent collector that looks like glass. Unique and very serious problem became prohibitively low efficiency of the device - a little more than 1% of the solar energy received. Nevertheless, even this achievement experts believe success.

Now the device, to put it mildly, "raw", but scientists believe that this time they have chosen the right direction. As the use of the solar collector is exceptionally broad. Mostly, these collectors could be used instead of glass windows for buildings and vehicles, increasing their energy independence from foreign sources of energy and making a "cleaner".

While collectors and do not produce electricity directly, to find themselves they could and in the manufacture of screens for electrical devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. Members of the research group said that in the next six months will be able to raise the efficiency of the device to strip in 5%, and if they succeed, the efficiency gains in the future will be even easier.