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Using fire to boil water has long been the preferred method for making steam. But now, thanks to specially coated nanoparticles of sand, we can use sunlight.
Researchers at Rice University in Texas made fine grains of sand, much smaller than the width of a human hair, and coated them in gold or carbon. They sprinkled these nanoparticles into water, and then focused sunlight on them. Each particle acted as a nano-sized boiler, absorbing the heat from the sunlight and turning surrounding water molecules from liquid to vapor. This solar steam was produced without having to boil the whole pot, in as quickly as five seconds.
The research was published in the American Chemical Society's journal ACS Nano. [Oara Neumann et al., Solar Vapor Generation Enabled by Nanoparticles]
The nano-sized boilers turn sunlight into steam with 80 percent efficiency and could prove a boon in places that lack fossil fuels or electricity. The nanoparticles are easy to make, relatively cheap and can be used over and over again.
The technology could enable folks in resource poor areas to do everything from purifying water to sterilizing surgical equipment. And that might be enough to start a new, if smaller, Steam Age.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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7 Comments
Add Commentand when those nano-particles escape into the environment and ingested . . . well, there is always a price to pay for any "progress". It would be fantastic if these sorts of articles could also mediate their enthusiasm with this ever present other side of things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere seem to be a lot of advances taking place with no clear picture of where they will take us or why
would our government stop you if you came up with an idea to use this technology in steam engines for cars and send goons to lean on you on behalf of the oil companies and gasoline tax revenues? or would they only allow the use of the technology on small cars like the smart-car, to keep consumers from reaching bigger main stream auto products that has the potential to undercutting tax revenues to .0 dollars of unspent gasoline use, and you know what the oil companies want when they tell the news media for us to get used to $10.00 per gallon of gasoline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would rather pay more road tax than the high fuel prices that benefit the greedy and the foreign governments who are our sworn enemy.
I think we can pay tax by the mile driven if need be, at least the same amount of tax if not more tax revenues could be collected to finance better causes and we would still spend less than the miles per gallons of gasoline used as is, think about it and make the right proposals to our government and auto makers for a better world.
Jose L. Vasquez
Salt Lake City, Utah.
The government won't stop you from powering a car with these nano-particles, but simple physics probably will. It requires concentrated and focused sunlight, so your car won't move in the shade, in a tunnel, at night .... regardless of tax structure. And you need lots and lots of pressure from that steam, so unless you are driving around under a giant magnifying glass you aren't likely to move even in the sun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems a great invention!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have in the web for reading and for see a vídeo these two pages that are from *American Chemical Society* and from *Rice University*:
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_031305&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=4fb317aa-daed-4abe-af44-15686901ca2b
http://news.rice.edu/2012/11/19/rice-unveils-super-efficient-solar-energy-technology/
I very much doubt it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot much was claimed for this technolgy but it was still too much. As for those who post Goldilocks proposals using this, they need to realise that no matter what technology is developed, it is impossible to get more energy out of a system than you put in. Sunlight in the middle of the day under clear conditions contains about 1 killowatt of energy per m2. No matter what you do or how you do it, that is it. Try & convert that energy into heat or electricity & a substantial proportion is lost. Never gained. It is a basic law of physics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom *MIT*, about this theme, we have this web page, that function like a podcast permitting to us read the text and hear it from a synthetic voice:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(In the button *GLOBAL EDITION* we have available a translation to Portuguese language –from Brazil)
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/507821/nanoparticles-make-steam-without-bringing-water-to-a-boil/