{"id":156581,"date":"2024-05-17T14:03:48","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T18:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/noticias\/use-solar-energy-as-heat-source\/"},"modified":"2024-05-17T15:00:18","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T19:30:18","slug":"use-solar-energy-as-heat-source","status":"publish","type":"noticias","link":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/news\/use-solar-energy-as-heat-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Harness Solar Energy for Heating Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A team of Swiss researchers is experimenting with <strong>solar energy as a heat source<\/strong>. By conducting a study on synthetic quartz, they were able to capture solar energy and reach temperatures above 1,000 \u00b0C (1,<em>832 \u00b0F<\/em>), demonstrating its viability as an alternative energy source for industries with high energy demands.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Solar energy as a heat source<\/h2>\n\n<p>One of the ideas of people is that they associate energy only with electricity, when the reality is different, because about <strong>half of the energy consumed globally is used in the form of heat<\/strong>, is the opinion of Emiliano Casati of ETH Zurich, Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n<p>According to Casati, the production of materials such as glass, steel, cement and ceramics (indispensable for modern infrastructure) require temperatures exceeding 1,000 \u00b0C for their manufacture and use fossil fuels. <strong>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/articulo\/alternative-energy-fossil-fuels\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fossil fuels<\/a>\n<\/strong> to reach high temperatures.<\/p>\n\n<p>These industries account for approximately<strong> 25% of global energy consumption<\/strong>. Some researchers have explored the use of solar receivers, which <strong>concentrate heat through thousands of mirrors that track the sun<\/strong>, as a clean alternative. However, this technology faces challenges to efficiently transfer solar energy at temperatures above 1,000 \u00b0C.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The quest for efficiency in solar energy<\/h2>\n\n<p>Casati and his team<strong> used semitransparent materials such as quartz<\/strong>, which are capable of trapping sunlight through the heat-trapping effect. They then succeeded in designing a thermal capture device composed of a synthetic quartz rod and an opaque silicon disk as an energy absorber.<\/p>\n\n<p>When the device was exposed to an energy flux comparable to 136 suns, the absorber plate reached 1,050 \u00b0C<em>(1,922 \u00b0F<\/em>), while the other end of the quartz rod was held at 600 \u00b0C<em>(1,112 \u00b0F<\/em>). A point of Casati&#8217;s previous research showed that they had achieved the heat-trapping effect up to 170 \u00b0C<em>(338 \u00b0F<\/em>). The study confirmed that solar thermal capture is effective and achieves 1,000 \u00b0C, an optimum temperature for real industrial applications.<\/p>\n\n<p>The team also simulated the thermal capture efficiency of quartz under various conditions using a heat transfer model. This model showed that thermal capture can achieve the desired temperature with lower concentrations of sunlight and maintain the same performance. In addition. This model achieves <strong>higher thermal efficiency for the same concentration<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Applications of the quartz thermal capture model<\/h2>\n\n<p>For example, a state-of-the-art unshielded receiver has an efficiency of 40% at 1,200 \u00b0C with a concentration of 500 suns. In contrast, a 300 mm quartz-shielded receiver achieves 70% efficiency at the same temperature and concentration. The unshielded receiver needs at least 1,000 suns of concentration for similar performance.<\/p>\n\n<p>Now, the research team at <strong>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/ethz.ch\/en.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/ethz.ch\/en.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ETH Zurich<\/a>\n<\/strong> is focused on <strong>optimizing the thermal capture effect and exploring new applications for this method<\/strong>. So far, the results have been promising. By investigating other materials, such as different fluids and gases, they have been able to reach even higher temperatures. Moreover, the ability of these semi-transparent materials to absorb radiation is not limited to <strong>solar energy<\/strong> alone.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Follow us on social networks and don&#8217;t miss any of our publications!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Inspenet.com<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@inspenet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/inspenetnetwork\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/inspenetnetwork\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/inspenet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Instagram<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Inspenetnetwork\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">X<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Source: cell.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Photo: Shutterstock<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Casati and his team used semitransparent materials such as quartz, capable of trapping sunlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8404,"featured_media":156230,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categoria_noticias":[13026,13044],"etiqueta_noticias":[],"class_list":["post-156581","noticias","type-noticias","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categoria_noticias-energy","categoria_noticias-new-energies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/156581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticias"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/156581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categoria_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categoria_noticias?post=156581"},{"taxonomy":"etiqueta_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/etiqueta_noticias?post=156581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}