This is kind of crazy.
What if I told you it was possible to turn water into steam, without even making the water boil? Without even making the water warm to the touch?
Researchers at Rice University in Texas have done this.
They accomplished this by mixing a small amount of either carbon or gold-coated silicon dioxide nano-particles (each 1/10 the diameter of a single human hair) with water in a glass. Because they are so small, smaller than the wavelength of visible light, it means that they can absorb most of a light wave's energy rather than scattering it.
That means that when something like sunlight is focused on the glass, the particles quickly become hot enough to vaporize the water directly surrounding it. This creates a bubble of steam that envelopes the nano-particle so it becomes insulated from the cooler liquid water. This allows it to become even hotter and vaporize even more of the water immediately around it.
At some point the nano-particle and its steam envelope become large enough to grow buoyant, at which point the whole steam bubble-particle and all-floats to the surface. The steam is released into the air, and the particle falls back into the cooler water and sinks back down until it begins to absorb sunlight and heat again, at which point the process starts all over.
This happens for each particle that is in the mixture. And these nano-particles are completely durable meaning that they can keep absorbing, heating, cooling, and absorbing again with never a need to replace them.
This to me sounds like a new way of using the sun's energy. We could use these nano-particles along with sunlight to create steam which will then turn turbines, creating electricity.
A new future for solar power.
"Pretty nuts, no? It spells an interesting future for solar power in general, but more specifically it's easy to see how a cheap and abundant source of steam, even in low specific volumes, could be used to do anything from generate electricity and heat to lower the energy intensive nature of certain processes like water desalinization. As the WaPo points out, the last time someone came up with a cheap and easy way to generate and harness abundant steam it completely changed the world. So there’s that."
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What if I told you it was possible to turn water into steam, without even making the water boil? Without even making the water warm to the touch?
Researchers at Rice University in Texas have done this.
They accomplished this by mixing a small amount of either carbon or gold-coated silicon dioxide nano-particles (each 1/10 the diameter of a single human hair) with water in a glass. Because they are so small, smaller than the wavelength of visible light, it means that they can absorb most of a light wave's energy rather than scattering it.
That means that when something like sunlight is focused on the glass, the particles quickly become hot enough to vaporize the water directly surrounding it. This creates a bubble of steam that envelopes the nano-particle so it becomes insulated from the cooler liquid water. This allows it to become even hotter and vaporize even more of the water immediately around it.
At some point the nano-particle and its steam envelope become large enough to grow buoyant, at which point the whole steam bubble-particle and all-floats to the surface. The steam is released into the air, and the particle falls back into the cooler water and sinks back down until it begins to absorb sunlight and heat again, at which point the process starts all over.
This happens for each particle that is in the mixture. And these nano-particles are completely durable meaning that they can keep absorbing, heating, cooling, and absorbing again with never a need to replace them.
This to me sounds like a new way of using the sun's energy. We could use these nano-particles along with sunlight to create steam which will then turn turbines, creating electricity.
A new future for solar power.
"Pretty nuts, no? It spells an interesting future for solar power in general, but more specifically it's easy to see how a cheap and abundant source of steam, even in low specific volumes, could be used to do anything from generate electricity and heat to lower the energy intensive nature of certain processes like water desalinization. As the WaPo points out, the last time someone came up with a cheap and easy way to generate and harness abundant steam it completely changed the world. So there’s that."
Source