solar energy absorption used in science fair project, wanted to know if other people had same results, or different.
3 thoughts on “Are there any results involving solar energy absorption using different color paints?”
Amy
Black absorbs, white reflects.
mr joe
black colour or colours with a longer wavelength reflect and absorb sunlight more as compared to the other colours of electromagnetic spectrum
scott h
Your question is poorly worded so I’ll sort of guess at what you mean.
Years ago I recall reading that NASA had determined that the best color to use for maximum solar collection was a very dark green.
I don’t remember how I found this but you might be able to dig this information back out of the internet with some GOOGLE searches.
Generally black is used for an absorber and white for a reflector (one of the other answers mentions this too).
If you would like to create an experiment for a science project to illustrate this here is how I’d do it.
1. Locate a digital thermometer (I would suggest you get one from a kitchen supply store with a digital display and a temperature probe of the end of a cable so that it could be stuck in a piece of meat).
2. Create 6 color chips, I would suggest this be done by painting strips of poster board different colors. I would suggest you use colors white (paint it white don’t leave it unpainted), black, red, yellow green and blue.
3. Get a large light bulb in a fixture so you can turn it on and off.
4. Mount the thermometer on the back of one of your color strips, set it at a distance of 12 inches from the light bulb and allow the light to fall on the strip for 30 minutes, take down the temperature measurement on the thermometer every 2 minutes to generate a graph for that one color.
5. Replace the color strip with the next strip and run the experiment again, recording the data every 2 minutes. Do this for each color strip.
6. Now graph all of the data on a single graph, if it works like I believe it should the black colored strip should show the fastest temperature rise and the white color the slowest.
I hope this makes sense and answers your question.
Black absorbs, white reflects.
black colour or colours with a longer wavelength reflect and absorb sunlight more as compared to the other colours of electromagnetic spectrum
Your question is poorly worded so I’ll sort of guess at what you mean.
Years ago I recall reading that NASA had determined that the best color to use for maximum solar collection was a very dark green.
I don’t remember how I found this but you might be able to dig this information back out of the internet with some GOOGLE searches.
Generally black is used for an absorber and white for a reflector (one of the other answers mentions this too).
If you would like to create an experiment for a science project to illustrate this here is how I’d do it.
1. Locate a digital thermometer (I would suggest you get one from a kitchen supply store with a digital display and a temperature probe of the end of a cable so that it could be stuck in a piece of meat).
2. Create 6 color chips, I would suggest this be done by painting strips of poster board different colors. I would suggest you use colors white (paint it white don’t leave it unpainted), black, red, yellow green and blue.
3. Get a large light bulb in a fixture so you can turn it on and off.
4. Mount the thermometer on the back of one of your color strips, set it at a distance of 12 inches from the light bulb and allow the light to fall on the strip for 30 minutes, take down the temperature measurement on the thermometer every 2 minutes to generate a graph for that one color.
5. Replace the color strip with the next strip and run the experiment again, recording the data every 2 minutes. Do this for each color strip.
6. Now graph all of the data on a single graph, if it works like I believe it should the black colored strip should show the fastest temperature rise and the white color the slowest.
I hope this makes sense and answers your question.