Synthetic quartz may help reduce the carbon footprint of industries that produce things like glass, steel, and cement.
In recent experiments, Federal University of Technology, Zurich, engineer Emiliano Casati and his colleagues used synthetic quartz rods to capture solar energy and transfer it, in the form of heat, to another material.
The researchers started with a foot-long rod of synthetic quartz, with a disk of opaque silicon attached to the far end. Next, they shined an intense beam of simulated solar energy onto the other end.
The end that caught all that solar energy heated up, but less than the researchers expected: about 1100 degrees Fahrenheit. But at the far end of the rod, away from the light, the silicon disk got even hotter: more than 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of just heating up the quartz rod, energy from the simulated sun had (mostly) passed through the quartz and been absorbed by the silicon disk at the other end.
Casati and his colleagues say their work could one day help industries produce steel, glass, and cement with solar energy instead of fossil fuels. Those materials are the backbone of modern infrastructure, but making them requires intense heat (more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit). The power to generate that heat accounts for about 25 percent of the world’s energy consumption, and at the moment, nearly all of it comes from burning fossil fuels — which is a big problem.
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