Sun’s energy can be turned to fuel

The sun’s energy can be turned into fuel with a prototype solar device that mimics plant life ,has just been disclosed. The sunlight ray’s heats a ceria cylinder which breaks down water or carbon dioxide into fuels which can be stored and transported. Researchers in the US and Switzerland devised the prototype that uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder that is lined with a certain oxide called ceria . When Ceria heats up and cools down it natural property’s cause it to exhale oxygen and inhale when it cools down . The energy generated in situ must use electricity when  conventional photovoltaic panels are used and cannot provide power at night. Hydrogen and/or water are pumped into the vessel if as in the propotype,and the ceria will quickly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, producing hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide.

A combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to make syngas for fuel used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars . The inventors of the device say, It is the harnessing of ceria’s properties in the solar reactor represents a major breakthrough and the metal is easily available since it is the most abundant of the rare earth metals. Using the same machine Methane can also be produced .