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A new report from MIT and Harvard University describes the development of a switchable material that could harness the power of the sun, even when the sun is not shining.
Team from MIT and Harvard have found a solution to this. They successfully created molecules known as photoswitches that absorb energy and switch from one form to another, these switches remain stable in this new form for a longer period of time.
“For solar cooking, one would leave the device out in the sun during the day,” says Kucharski. “One design we have for such an application is purely gravity driven – the material flows from one tank to another. The flow rate is restricted so that it’s exposed to the sun long enough that it gets fully charged. Then, when it’s time to cook dinner, after the sun is down, the flow direction is reversed, again driven by gravity, and the opposite side of the setup is used as the cooking surface.”
“As the material flows back to the first tank, it passes by an immobilized catalyst which triggers the energy-releasing process, heating the cooking surface up,” he adds.
Kucharski said “the MIT and Harvard team is now investigating other photoswitching molecules and substrates, with the aim of designing a system that absorbs more of the sun’s energy and also can be more practically scaled up.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
