A field of mirrored parabolic troughs sprawled across almost 2,000 acres of the Mojave Desert concentrates sunlight to produce steam to generate electricity. The Mojave Solar Project, which produces 250 MW of electricity, is one of several installations involving solar-thermal technology — the conversion of sunlight to thermal energy.
Solar-thermal conversion is the most efficient use of solar energy, more efficient than photovoltaics and artificial photosynthesis. In general, concentrated solar-thermal technologies use mirrors or lenses to concentrate sunlight onto a small area. The concentrated light heats a heat-transfer fluid to produce steam, which drives a steam turbine to produce electricity. One issue with this technology is the expensive optical concentrating equipment, which is required because the sun’s solar flux does not provide enough power per unit area of the absorber to boil water.
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) led by Gang Chen, the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering and head of the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, have developed a new device that does away with the costly concentrating equipment. In fact, it involves relatively mundane — and inexpensive — materials, including bubble wrap (typically used as packing). So far, the system has been able to generate saturated steam at...
Would you like to access the complete CEP News Update?
No problem. You just have to complete the following steps.
You have completed 0 of 2 steps.
-
Log in
You must be logged in to view this content. Log in now.
-
AIChE Membership
You must be an AIChE member to view this article. Join now.
Copyright Permissions
Would you like to reuse content from CEP Magazine? It’s easy to request permission to reuse content. Simply click here to connect instantly to licensing services, where you can choose from a list of options regarding how you would like to reuse the desired content and complete the transaction.
