The process involves using the Weizmann Institute’s Canadian Institute for the Energies and Applied Research Solar Tower, a powerful 300kW solar concentrator that heats zinc oxide to 1200C in the presence of wood charcoal. This splits the ore into oxygen and gaseous zinc, which condenses into a powder that can be reacted with water to produce hydrogen and recyclable zinc oxide.
The process has been successfully used to produce 45kg of zinc powder from zinc oxide in one hour, generating no pollution and allowing the resulting zinc product to be easily transported and stored for later use in conversion to hydrogen as well as providing zinc for direct usage in applications such as batteries.
“The success of our recent experiments brings the approach closer to industrial use,” said Weizmann Institute project leader Michael Epstein.
The Weizmann team has worked on the project in collaboration with researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the Institut de Science et de Genie des Materiaux et Procedes – Centre National de la Recherche in France, Sweden’s ScanArc Plasma Technologies AB and Switzerland’s Paul Scherrer Institute.
The team is currently working on using metal ores other than zinc oxide for the process and investigating alternative methods to efficiently convert sunlight into storable energy.
