Next, the disc moves into the zone of steam. In the prototype version, the steam is simply H2O, but it could also contain CO2. The oxygen molecules in the steam glom onto the ferrite ring and replace those oxygen molecules that were previously driven away in the first step. What remains are two molecules of hydrogen that can be captured and eventually used, for example, to power a hydrogen fuel cell. In the case of mixing CO2 with the steam, most of the oxygen molecules would glom onto the ferrite ring. The remaining molecules of hydrogen and carbon monoxide would bind to form methanol. This could be used as a fuel or synthesized into a petroleum substitute. "The solar reactor is innovative and allows them to perform both steps of the thermo-chemical cycle in the same reactor," said professor Aldo Steinfeld, editor of the ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering and head of the Solar Technology Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The big challenges lie in the device's efficiency, he said. "The rate of radiation heat transfer given by concentrated solar energy to the rate of the chemical reaction given by the kinetics of the process need to be matched," said Steinfeld. Diver and his team are working to improve the efficiency, but think it could be a decade or more before such a device would be available. Related Links: |
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