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A Small Bulb Bottle Lights Up a Home Without Electricity

  • Thursday, 19 December 2024
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A Small Bulb Bottle Lights Up a Home Without Electricity

A Brazilian mechanic named Alfredo Moser had a light-bulb moment in 2002 when he realized that a plastic bottle filled with water and a bit of bleach could illuminate his home during the day without electricity.small bulb bottle Since then, his simple invention has spread to more than 15 countries and is expected to be in a million homes by next year.

A Small Bulb Bottle Lights Up a Home Without Electricity

The system is inexpensive and works through the magic of refraction.small bulb bottle Using the principle of a deck prism, a plastic bottle fitted into a hole in a roof refracts sunlight and delivers about 55 watts of daylight to the interior of a house, enough to light a small room. The bottle is filled with a mixture of purified drinking water and two capfuls of bleach to prevent algal growth.

Moser, who has a background as a mechanic, has built prototypes for the device and taught local residents how to make them.small bulb bottle His organization, Liter of Light, is fitting the bulbs into houses, and he hopes to reach a million homes by early next year.

To assemble the bulb, workers cut out a patch of sheet roofing that is the size of a bottle.small bulb bottle They then drill holes through the roof. The first hole is the same size as the bottom of a bottle, and the second is a little smaller to accommodate a wire running from an external solar panel. The solar panel charges a battery, which powers the lights at night.

Once the wires are run through the hole in the roof, workers install a solar-charged hybrid Moser bottle and a solar battery. The batteries give the lights three and a half hours of use for every 12 hours they charge, enough to keep them on through most of the day in the Gomoa Gyaman community, which gets 12 hours of sunshine daily.

As the project has grown, it has become a social enterprise, with local entrepreneurs making and installing the bulbs and getting a fair price for their work. The goal is to get the bulbs into all the communities in a country that suffers from high rates of poverty and where electricity is unaffordable for most.

The company is now expanding its operations to other parts of the world, where Moser's innovation can be a lifeline. He is urging people to contact his organization or find one in their area to support the effort.

A version of this article appears in the November 2011 issue of Wired magazine, on newsstands now. To receive the magazine in its entirety, including all of its original content and features, subscribe online.

This article was written by Wired staff writers, based on reporting in the field and interviews with Alfredo Moser, founder of Liter of Light; Illac Diaz, CEO of MyShelter Foundation; and Nicolai Rapp, a German volunteer who helped launch the project up in the Dominican Republic in 2015.

The photos are by Lucerne Haines.

This article is part of a special report on a new generation of LEDs that promise to revolutionize the lighting industry. It is accompanied by a series of photos of the changing face of LEDs from a photographer who has captured the evolution of the technology over four years.

A Small Bulb Bottle Lights Up a Home Without Electricity

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A Small Bulb Bottle Lights Up a Home Without Electricity

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