Hacker News

Top stories

Live mirror
30 storiesupdated just nowView source snapshot
  1. AI-generated posters don’t have to be horrible(john.hartnup.uk ↗)
    230comments
  2. Laya the open source version of Jev(convaiinnovations.com ↗)
    13comments
  3. Human brain is two separate organs, Stanford Medicine-led research finds(stanford.edu ↗)
    125comments
  4. “The Secret Life of Circuits” is here(coredump.cx ↗)
    30comments
  5. If math is more than proof, we need to better celebrate the rest of it(terrytao.wordpress.com ↗)
    115comments
  6. GPT-6 Astra Solves a WWI German Radio Cipher(prinzai.com ↗)
    94comments
  7. Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP(grapheneos.social ↗)
    476comments
  8. San Francisco Onion Futures Company(onionfutures.com ↗)
    83comments
  9. Show HN: I wrote a custom assembler for CHIP-8 in C++(github.com/tackx ↗)
    discuss
  10. Communication by means of modulated Johnson noise(pnas.org ↗)
    6comments
  11. Cloudflare Quick Tunnels(cloudflare.com ↗)
    292comments
  12. From Stonemasons to Carpenters(thelastsoftwareengineer.substack.com ↗)
    2comments
  13. How to Write with an LLM(sockpuppet.org ↗)
    344comments
  14. You can run Git on object storage if you re-make packfiles(tigrisdata.com ↗)
    19comments
  15. SDCC – Small Device C Compiler(sourceforge.net ↗)
    20comments
  16. Saving another 100TB of RAM(cloudflare.com ↗)
    84comments
  17. Science Is Open Software(jepedersen.dk ↗)
    41comments
  18. How OpenAI Used Its Own LLMs to Design Its Jalapeño Chip(ieee.org ↗)
    98comments
  19. Why building a Rust LSP is hard(rust-glancer.github.io ↗)
    38comments
  20. Ctenophores: Wonders of Biology(quantamagazine.org ↗)
    6comments
  21. NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation open-Source Geospatial AI Model(usra.edu ↗)
    4comments
  22. The first new cat species discovered in 100 years(nationalgeographic.com ↗)
    108comments
  23. OpenJev(openjev.com ↗)
    273comments
  24. Show HN: Cactus Needle 3: 8-29MB automation models can match DeepSeek V4 Flash(cactuscompute.com ↗)
    89comments
  25. Goroutine Leak Profiles(go.dev ↗)
    5comments
  26. Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug(ledger.com ↗)
    74comments
  27. Veronese's Dogs(publicdomainreview.org ↗)
    2comments
  28. Cache-to-Cache: Direct Semantic Communication Between LLMs (2025)(arxiv.org ↗)
    14comments
  29. Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy (2021)(archive.org ↗)
    87comments
  30. Inside ZCode: Silently uploading your Git history to the cloud(ferstar.org ↗)
    105comments

Using solar energy to generate heat at 1050°C high temperatures

1 pointsby 2y agoethz.ch
3 comments
2y agoHN ↗

It consists of a quartz rod coupled to a ceramic absorber which, thanks to its optical properties, can efficiently absorb sunlight and convert it into heat.

2y agoHN ↗

"Solar thermal trapping at 1,000°C and above" (2024) https://www.cell.com/device/fulltext/S2666-9986(24)00235-7 :

Summary: Common semi-transparent materials like quartz and water feature spectral optical properties characterized by low attenuation of visible radiation and strong absorption of infrared (IR) radiation emitted by hot surfaces. This leads to the thermal trap effect, exploitable in solar-concentrating applications to attain higher absorber temperatures and thermal efficiencies. Here, we demonstrate this effect at high temperatures with a quartz rod attached to an opaque absorber plate reaching 1,050°C when exposed to 135 suns of concentration, while the quartz front face remains at 450°C. A 3D heat transfer model, validated against the experimental data, is applied to determine the performance map of solar receivers exploiting thermal trapping. These are shown to achieve the target temperature with higher efficiency and/or needing a lower concentration than the reference unshielded absorber. Solar process heat at above 1,000°C can decarbonize key industrial applications such as cement manufacturing and metallurgical extraction.

2y agoHN ↗

Flash-heating waste plastic at 2827 C yields Hydrogen, CO2, and Graphene;

"Synthesis of Clean Hydrogen Gas from Waste Plastic at Zero Net Cost" (2023) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202306763 PDF: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gateway/chemrxiv/assets/orp/...

"Making hydrogen [and graphene] from waste plastic could pay for itself" (2023) https://news.rice.edu/news/2023/making-hydrogen-waste-plasti...

3100 Kelvin [ = 2827 C ]

gscholar citations for: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1338501696868292077...

What are the fundamental frequencies of plastic?

Is it possible yield Hydrogen and Graphene from plastic at lower than 3100K / 2827C?

Is it possible to generate 3100K / 2827C with this solar thermal trap design?

(edit) Other solar concentrator specs:

NREL's High-Flux Solar Furnace (HFSF) https://www.nrel.gov/csp/facility-hfsf.html L

The solar furnace can quickly concentrate solar radiation to 10 kilowatts over a 10-cm diameter (2,500 "suns"), achieving temperatures of 1,800°C—and up to peak solar fluxes of 20,000 suns with specialized secondary optics to produce temperatures of up to 3,000°C. Secondary concentrators can modify the focal point and tailor flux levels and distributions to suit the needs of each research activity.

When the sun shines brightly, a concentrator with specialized secondary optics should thus be enough to flash heat plastic to yield hydrogen and graphene.

OT is quartz with 135 suns of concentration.

Quartz (SiO2) melting points, according to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz :

1670 °C (β tridymite); 1713 °C (β cristobalite)

Granite melting points too due to a recent geopolymer research interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite :

1215–1260 °C [at ambient pressure]

Composition: SiO2 72.04% (silica), Al2O3 14.42% (alumina), K2O ~4%

Granite and Quartz and Silicic magmas.

Silicic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicic