Abstract:

Every minute the sun delivers more energy to the surface of the earth than the entire world consumes in a year. Nowadays, the global climatic change makes necessary to develop renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuel supplies. It’s important to motivate students to these areas, so that, they can understand the importance of the chemistry in our society. The field of solar cells offers an area where students may be motivated to learn this science.

Everyday solar cells are involved in our daily life. Something as simple and common as garden lamps use the new technologies like a photovoltaic solar cell and rechargeable batteries.

In this work, we propose an example for understanding these technologies based on the components of a garden lamp, including the chemistry that is involved in these types of devices and two common characterization techniques in solid state chemistry, X-ray Diffraction and Electronic Microscopy. This can be interesting for general public, teachers of inorganic chemistry and material science and undergraduate students owing to its pedagogical character.