The carbon in human hair can be used to improve the stability and performance of solar energy, scientists from the Queensland University of Technology have discovered.
It’s something discarded at home and in salons by enormous amounts. However, QUT researchers burned strands of hair to extract the carbon and turn it into microscopic dots. They then coated solar panel materials with those “nanodots.”
The study -- to be published in the -- showed that when coated with the nanodots made from hair, the solar energy became significantly more stable and more efficient.
“[The carbon] creates a kind of protective layer, a kind of armour,” Lead researcher Professor Hongxia Wang said. She says it protects the material from the damage caused by extreme weather and other environmental factors like radiation and humidity.
Professor Wang is working with a cutting-edge kind of solar cell known as perovskite, which is lighter, thinner and more powerful than existing technology. But she says one problem was its stability.
More than 45 per cent of human hair is made of carbon - making it a useful resource for scientists. Source: The Feed/ Pat Forrest
“I was very surprised and also quite excited when I saw the effect of the carbon dots,” she said.
“More stable means that it can last longer, and therefore in the long run the cost of the solar is cheaper.”
She says making it more affordable and easier to access is her ultimate goal.
Professor Hongxia Wang Source: Supplied
Human hair powering mobile phones and spacecraft?
Professor Wang says anything that requires electricity, can be powered with solar.
“It can be used to provide electricity for mobile devices, laptops, phones, solar cars or boats, also for spacecraft and satellites,” she said.
Which means if the nanodots end up being used in the commercial production of perovskite solar and researchers prove the technology can cope in extreme environments:
Our hair may one day end up playing a role in solar powering spacecraft.
“It is new research and quite often we don’t know what is going to happen...But this curiosity drives us to try all kinds of crazy ideas,” Prof. Wang said.
“In the end it needs to be tested by industry.”
Who thought to use human hair in technology?
Professor Wang is building on research first championed by QUT PhD student Amandeep Singh Pannu.
He says the journey started with his own locks.
“I’m a Sikh and hair in my culture, we believe it is very sacred...We don’t cut it. When we comb our hair, we keep it and we discard it very safely. I had a lot of my own hair.
“So, I said, why am I throwing it? I should try and convert it to something else!”
“It was basically a side project.”
But in 2020, it turned into ground-breaking research. Along with Associate Professor Prashant Sonar, he discovered how to convert hair into carbon nanodots and, like smartwatches.
“We process the hair to convert carbon present in human hair into small dots which when excited start omitting light,” Mr Singh said.
PhD student Amandeep Singh and Associate Professor Prashant Sonar Source: Supplied
Amandeep says hair is than the metals we use for smart devices or solar at the moment.
In fact, hair is the resource of the future, according to Paul Frasca, the CEO and co-founder of an organisation that collects and reuses discarded hair and other waste materials from hairdressers.
Preparing hair for a Great Barrier Reef oil spill
Amandeep Singh and Paul Frasca met in 2019, while Amandeep was looking into carbon in hair.
“Paul handed me his paper and told me they’re already doing research looking into how human hair absorbs oil. So, I was excited and thought I was going in the right direction, [so much so] that my side project became my main project, my PhD,” Mr Singh said.
Paul Frasca, CEO and co-founder of Sustainable Salons Source: Supplied
Paul Frasca started researching hair 15 years ago.
“What I found quite fascinating was that there weren't many people out there researching hair... And when we did start to really investigate and work with universities in studying hair, you start to find out just how amazing it is,” he said
“It really is this amazing absorbent to cleaning up oil spills,” he said.
Before working with Amandeep at QUT, Paul joined forces with which clean up oil spills in the ocean, as an alternative to damaging chemical dispersants.
“We're definitely not going out sprinkling the hair on top of the oil spill, right? So, what it actually is, it's a boom, essentially like a big sausage,” he said.
Sustainable Salons has paired up with more than a thousand shopfronts. Source: The Feed/ Pat Forrest
“If an oil spill did happen, we would need a vast amount of hair prepared, created into booms and stockpiled and to be at that oil spill within a few days,” he said.
He’s aiming to increase the stockpile to 50 tonnes.
The potential of hair
Research is underway into hair’s use in compost, fertiliser and maintaining moisture in soil. Even still, the sustainable use of human hair and its properties remains largely unexplored.
But it shouldn’t be.
“Because it grows like grass. So, here is this amazing organic material and it's filled with things like amino acids, protein, keratin. It just has all the goodies that can go into so many different products of the future,” Paul said.
“We've just been allowing this resource to just go into the bin,” he said.
He’s right. Possibly because hair gets weird and creepy once it's off your head, we’ve largely ignored its potential.
But the future could be your own hair lighting up your smart watch or your dog's hair mopping up an oil spill.
So, should we all be thinking twice about sending our locks to landfill?
