Just how hot are we talking? Only about 3,500°C at the peak of the experiment, which is hot enough to boil iron. Yes, it’s that hot.
In order to get to such high temperatures, the experiment (which is called Synlight) uses an array of more than a hundred high-powered spotlights, which are all focused together on a single target. And when you combine that much light from so many different sources, you get light which is about ten thousand times more intense than sunlight.
So why go to all this trouble? You might assume they’re trying to see whether intensely focused beams of sunlight can be harnessed in future solar energy projects.
But you’d be wrong.
The real reason: hydrogen extraction.
The idea is to use intense beams of focused light to bombard water vapour, thereby separating the oxygen and hydrogen atoms in the vapour by breaking the covalent bonds holding the H2O molecules together.
Although the spotlights used in this phase of the experiment require a lot of energy input and have a high carbon footprint, the aim is to eventually use sunlight to create a renewable, carbon neutral process for harvesting hydrogen gas.
As for why we might want large amounts of hydrogen gas, the answer is simple: it’s a great replacement for fossil fuels. Hydrogen gas is combustible, and can be used to fuel aeroplanes, automobiles, and power plants. In an interview with The Guardian, Professor Bernard Hoffschmidt, a research director at the German Aerospace Center, explained, “We’d need billions of tonnes of hydrogen if we wanted to drive aeroplanes and cars on CO2-free fuel…Climate change is speeding up so we need to speed up innovation.”
But although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, most of the available hydrogen atoms in our atmosphere are bound up in other molecules, such as methane (CH4) or water vapour (H2O). Actual pure hydrogen gas (H2) is relatively rare — less than one percent of the atmosphere. Much less in fact: a mere 0.000055% of our atmosphere is comprised of H2.
But wait, if we start breaking up H2O molecules to harness hydrogen, won’t we eventually run out of water?
No, and that’s the beauty of combustible hydrogen: when it’s burned, we end up with water molecules as the byproduct instead of carbon dioxide (CO2). So not only do we get all our precious water molecules back for free, we also solve the problem of greenhouse gas production.
So let’s hope this experiment gets a good result. The clock is ticking on global petroleum reserves, and climate change is accelerating. We badly need a silver bullet to solve our energy woes. And abundant, free hydrogen gas could be a major piece of the puzzle in coming decades.
source: http://www.msn.com