Gold Foil coated parabolic reflectors for smelting

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goldshark said:
A bit of misunderstanding on all parts. My thread headline stated smelting, Stoneware posted the video melting some Au with a Fresnell lens, I tried to steer back to smelting, but the video put everyone's mind on a strictly metal melting vision. Lots of steps to getting to melting metal, but maybe have to start with smelting. I would like this to be a large scale project. It will require a fair amount of piling mounts, and Sun tracking devices. After a large clean up, the pilings and tracking equipment could then be utilized for a PV installation. A huge rage around here.
There are a multitude of heavy sulphide dumps around the state of Colorado. Colorado has 4 major rivers flowing from it. Even a solar roaster, to remove the sulfides, would be a winner for our state, and all states down stream. The current mitigation is put a cap of Limestone to neutralize the acid formation, heavy metals are still leaching into the ground. Maybe create a supergene deposit. Just trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
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Aha.
Well with today’s technology and plenty of space for mirrors one could surely get it hot enough.
But the sulphur gases would still need collecting.
It still is going to be a significant investment.
 
goldshark said:
It takes around 225 kw/h to heat 1 ton to 2000F. Sorry, full moon, can't sleep. 225 kw/h = 768,000 BTUs
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Today tracking would be relatively cheap, but each mirror would need its own mechanical device with two stepper motors at least.
Control electronic might be centrally governed with simpler translation devices on each mirror.
So with 100% efficiency one needs somewhere around 250 m2 mirrors😏
 
I have boiled water with an umbrella covered with aluminium foil. Have no idea about gold but it would be pretty easy to make a disk covered with leaf gold. But the disk area needed ,to melt a ton every 30 min, needs to be of significant size. To make one that can melt 5 gr seems doable but 1 ton??? Well you guys in US like BIG things and have deserts to fill up with gigant disks.

One m2 sun gives 60w/h if i remember the correct figure. That would mean you need to collect the sun energy over 7500 m2 and focus on your lot to smelt.

But now i got this thing on my head. Inquart with lead directly and you lower smelting point.

Edit: The Ir spectra should be important. A ir absorbing material in the cru as well.
 
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I see one good usage of the sun. It is easy to make an sun driven pyrolyser that can take larger batches. The gasses can be collected and burned of in a controlled way in the same time the gas generates heat to other processes (smelting?). 2:d step could be to smelt the remaining metal.
 
Yggdrasil said:
Today tracking would be relatively cheap, but each mirror would need its own mechanical device with two stepper motors at least.
Control electronic might be centrally governed with simpler translation devices on each mirror.
So with 100% efficiency one needs somewhere around 250 m2 mirrors😏
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I found you get get 1000 watts per square meter, average, per hour, 100% efficiency.
 
stella polaris said:
I have boiled water with an umbrella covered with aluminium foil. Have no idea about gold but it would be pretty easy to make a disk covered with leaf gold. But the disk area needed ,to melt a ton every 30 min, needs to be of significant size. To make one that can melt 5 gr seems doable but 1 ton??? Well you guys in US like BIG things and have deserts to fill up with gigant disks.

One m2 sun gives 60w/h if i remember the correct figure. That would mean you need to collect the sun energy over 7500 m2 and focus on your lot to smelt.

But now i got this thing on my head. Inquart with lead directly and you lower smelting point.

Edit: The Ir spectra should be important. A ir absorbing material in the cru as well.
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If it is at all doable, maybe a GIANT government subsidy.
 
goldshark said:
I found you get get 1000 watts per square meter, average, per hour, 100% efficiency.
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Yes that is what I said, you need a bit of over head.
The sun do not always cooperate, though in a real life situation I'd go for 100-200% overhead.
 
stella polaris said:
I have boiled water with an umbrella covered with aluminium foil. Have no idea about gold but it would be pretty easy to make a disk covered with leaf gold. But the disk area needed ,to melt a ton every 30 min, needs to be of significant size. To make one that can melt 5 gr seems doable but 1 ton??? Well you guys in US like BIG things and have deserts to fill up with gigant disks.

One m2 sun gives 60w/h if i remember the correct figure. That would mean you need to collect the sun energy over 7500 m2 and focus on your lot to smelt.

But now i got this thing on my head. Inquart with lead directly and you lower smelting point.

Edit: The Ir spectra should be important. A ir absorbing material in the cru as well.
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The earth receives just above 1000W per square meter from the sun, I believe that is what reaches the surface, I haven't really researched much.
And this would probably be at the equator so one have to deduct from there.

Edit to add:
Just popped into my head, I do not know if this is over the day or constant, so if it is 1000W per day then it would end up in just above 100W/h
Which increases the amount of mirrors by 8-10 :eek:
 
Yggdrasil said:
Aha.
Well with today’s technology and plenty of space for mirrors one could surely get it hot enough.
But the sulphur gases would still need collecting.
It still is going to be a significant investment.
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Definitely in the millions US. These mine dumps are massive. EPA has already spent many 10s of millions on drainage tunnel water management alone. Their first priority. Second phase is dealing with mine dumps and smelter slag. The clean up in 1 area could easily go into the 100s of millions of dollars. To see the massiveness of this problem, google earth Leadville ,Colorado. East of town are mines, south are slag dumps from smelter.
 
goldshark said:
Definitely in the millions US. These mine dumps are massive. EPA has already spent many 10s of millions on drainage tunnel water management alone. Their first priority. Second phase is dealing with mine dumps and smelter slag. The clean up in 1 area could easily go into the 100s of millions of dollars. To see the massiveness of this problem, google earth Leadville ,Colorado. East of town are mines, south are slag dumps from smelter.
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With a major mirror array one can actually decompose all the chemicals used in mining another "dirty" industries.
I think the powe plant in Spain, similar to the one you mentioned have a target temperature somewhere around 5000C.
 
Yggdrasil said:
The earth receives just above 1000W per square meter from the sun, I believe that is what reaches the surface, I haven't really researched much.
And this would probably be at the equator so one have to deduct from there.

Edit to add:
Just popped into my head, I do not know if this is over the day or constant, so if it is 1000W per day then it would end up in just above 100W/h
Which increases the amount of mirrors by
Click to expand...

If 1kw/h m2 then everybody should have solarenergy heating their houses. 4 m2 would heat your house a sunny winter day
 
goldshark said:
Just goes to show how inefficient our current technology is. As Yggdrasil and I both stated, or put in a disclaimer shall we say, that is with 100% efficiency.
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Sorry but it was ment to show it probably not 1000w/h. If you have a black roof, lets say 50 m2 on the sunny side, then you would have 50kw heating your house. You would not be able to stay inside without being cooked. It can not be 1kw/h its simply to much.
 

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