Steel and concrete can be melted with solar energy

A team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) said they have developed a technology that revolves around using semi-transparent materials such as quartz to efficiently trap solar energy at extremely high temperatures.

This phenomenon is called the heat-trapping effect. The team built a heat-trapping device by attaching a semi-transparent quartz rod to an opaque silicon disk, which acted as an energy absorber (pictured). When exposed to intense light equivalent to the combined light from 136 suns, the device not only reached but maintained a remarkable temperature of 1,050 ⁰ C at the absorber, while the opposite end of the quartz rod remained significantly cooler at 600 ⁰ C.

Previous studies have only demonstrated the heat-trapping effect at temperatures up to 170 ⁰ C, but this study shows that solar heat trapping works not only at low temperatures but also above 1,000 ⁰ C. This is a significant leap forward towards clean energy solutions for heavy industries such as steel and cement production.

According to earth.com, the research team is currently optimizing the heat-trapping effect and researching new applications for this method.

KHANH HUNG