Researchers have developed a prototype for calibrating an entire solar field in a single night, shaving months off the current calibration system for large size concentrated solar power (CSP) tower plants. In tower CSPs, an encircling solar field of thousands of heliostats (specialized mirrors) must continuously and precisely reflect concentrated sunlight onto a tower receiver […]
Researcher Pioneers Solar Sintering For Crucial Steel Component
Lina Hockaday, Senior Engineer in Pyrometallurgy at Mintek’s New Technology Group in South Africa, proposes that solar thermal reactors, able to reach temperatures up to 1200°C, could virtually eliminate emissions from processing manganese ore fines, by using solar sintering. Manganese is the fourth-most used metal in the world, at 6 million tons a year, needed […]