Major advance in using sunlight to produce steam without boiling water

[DavidDvorkin]

Scientists today are describing a revolutionary new way to use sunlight to produce steam and other vapors without heating an entire container of fluid to the boiling point. The advance, reported in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal ACS Nano, has potential applications, especially in the poverty-stricken areas of the developing world, that include inexpensive, compact devices for purification of drinking water, sterilization of medical instruments and sanitizing sewage.

"This research opens up a revolutionary new application of nanoparticles in solar energy," said Paul Weiss, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of ACS Nano, one of more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific journals published by ACS, the world's largest scientific society. "The authors show that sunlight can be used to create steam with virtually no wasteful heating of the surrounding liquid. The potential societal benefits are staggering. They include more energy-efficient distillation of alcohol, a new and highly practical strategy for desalination and water purification and compact solar-driven sources of steam for sterilization and sanitation in resource-poor locations," said Weiss.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/acs-mai111512.php

[Lint Head]

1. Could this revitalize the steam engine?

[uponit7771]

2. Who knows, I can imagine using a bunch of magnifying glasses concentrated on a element that'll aborb

...heat well, produce steam to drive an electric motor much like a nuke plant but without the nuking.

If it produces enough heat it can store some in batteries for later...

who knows

[Eleanors38]

3. Sounds a lot different from hot water-on-demand...

I wonder how the nanoparticles are developed. Could be the material starts as "bar stock" and is ground down then sifted. I wonder how it is recovered, and how often re-used.