Displaying items by tag: solar reactor

US: Heliogen, a new technology venture, says it has concentrated solar energy to exceed temperatures greater than 1000°C at its commercial plant in Lancaster, California. The company hopes to use the process to replace fossil fuels used in industrial cement, steel and petrochemical production processes. It is using computer vision software to align a large array of mirrors to reflect sunlight to a single target.

The company is based in Pasadena, California and is lead by Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, a US technology startup incubator. Heliogen is supported by Parsons Corporation, a company that operates in defence, intelligence and critical infrastructure markets. Other backers include Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft.

France: The SOLPART (Solar-Heated Reactors for Industrials Production of Reactive Particulates) project plans to test a pilot-scale version of its solar reactor from February 2019. The 50kW solar reactor will test a fluidised bed system at its PROMES (PROcédés, Materials and Solar Energy) testing site in Odeillo. The ultimate goal of the project is to test using a rotary kiln and a fluidised bed system to produce cement, lime, gypsum and other non-metallic products using only solar energy. The pilot scale reactor will test calcining limestone at a rate of 50kg/hr. Industrial partners involved with the project include Cemex.