Meet the Steel-Melting Solar Mirror

June 30, 2008 -- Enterprising kids know you can melt crayons by focusing light on them with a magnifying glass. MIT students are now vaporizing wood, and can theoretically melt steel, by focusing sunlight with mirrors.

Their goal: cheap, super-efficient solar energy.

The students' 12-foot by 12-foot parabolic mirror, or solar concentrator, is made of off-the-shelf metal framing fitted with bent mirrors that focus the sun's light onto a single point.

The students have created a new company, RawSolar, to sell their patented dish design.

"The first goal is to create a heat source that is cheaper than natural gas or oil," said Matt Ritter, one of the MIT students and Public Relations Manager for RawSolar. "An eventual application is electricity generation."

Solar collectors have been around for millenniums. The ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes reportedly turned an attacking Roman fleet to ash with one.

The design the used by the MIT team was first proposed by Doug Wood, a long time solar collector proponent who worked extensively with the students to develop the new parabolic shape.

Both the mirrors and the scaffolding are exceedingly cheap and readily available, said Ritter, adding that the cost effectiveness is a big advantage of their design.