FOUR THINGS ABOUT AN ARTIFICIAL SUN
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Scientists in Germany flipped the switch Thursday on what’s being described as “the world’s largest artificial sun,” a device they hope will help shed light on new ways of making climate-friendly fuels. The giant honeycomb-like setup of 149 spotlights — officially known as “Synlight” — uses xenon short-arc lamps to simulate natural sunlight.
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By focusing the entire array on a single 20-by-20 cm spot, scientists from the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, will be able to produce the equivalent of 10,000 times the amount of solar radiation that would normally shine on the same surface. Creating such furnace-like conditions — with temperatures of up to 3,000 Celsius — is key to testing novel ways of making hydrogen, according to Bernhard Hoffschmidt, director of DLR’s Institute for Solar Research.
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Many consider hydrogen to be the fuel of the future because it produces no carbon emissions when burned, meaning it doesn’t add to global warming. But while hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. One way to manufacture it is to split water into its two components — the other being oxygen — using electricity in a process called electrolysis. Researchers hope to bypass the electricity stage by tapping into the enormous amount of energy that reaches Earth in the form of light from the sun.
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Hoffschmidt said the dazzling display is designed to take experiments done in smaller labs to the next level, adding that once researchers have mastered hydrogen-making techniques with Synlight’s 350-kilowatt array, the process could be scaled up on the way to reaching a level fit for industry. Experts say this could take about a decade. The goal is to eventually use actual sunlight rather than the artificial light produced at the Juelich experiment, which cost US$3.8 million to build and requires as much electricity in four hours as a four-person household would use in a year.