{"id":25851,"date":"2019-12-22T09:37:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T22:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=25851"},"modified":"2019-12-22T09:37:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T22:37:58","slug":"scientists-develop-liquid-fuel-that-can-store-the-suns-energy-for-up-to-18-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=25851","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Develop Liquid Fuel That Can Store The Sun&#8217;s Energy For Up to 18 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"415\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Solar_Thermal_Fuel.jpg\" alt=\"Solar Thermal Fuel\" class=\"wp-image-25852\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Solar_Thermal_Fuel.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Solar_Thermal_Fuel-300x122.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Solar_Thermal_Fuel-768x311.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>No matter how abundant or renewable, solar power has a thorn in its side. There is still no cheap and efficient long-term storage for the energy that it generates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The solar industry has been snagged on this branch for a while, but in the past year alone, a series of four papers has ushered in an intriguing new solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientists in Sweden have developed a specialised fluid, called a solar thermal fuel, that can store energy from the sun for well over a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A solar thermal fuel is like a rechargeable battery, but instead of electricity, you put sunlight in and get heat out, triggered on demand,&#8221; Jeffrey Grossman, an engineer works with these materials at MIT explained to NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fluid is actually a molecule in liquid form that scientists from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden have been working on improving for over a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This molecule is composed of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, and when it is hit by sunlight, it does something unusual: the bonds between its atoms are rearranged and it turns into an energised new version of itself, called an isomer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like prey caught in a trap, energy from the sun is thus captured between the isomer&#8217;s strong chemical bonds, and it stays there even when the molecule cools down to room temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientists-develop-liquid-that-sucks-up-sun-s-energy\">https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientists-develop-liquid-that-sucks-up-sun-s-energy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No matter how abundant or renewable, solar power has a thorn in its side. There is still no cheap and efficient long-term storage for the energy that it generates. The solar industry has been snagged on this branch for a while, but in the past year alone, a series of four papers has ushered in &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=25851\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Scientists Develop Liquid Fuel That Can Store The Sun&#8217;s Energy For Up to 18 Years&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25853,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25851\/revisions\/25853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}