Sunlight Storage Concept

[Golden Mean]

Greetings All.

I've been kicking around an idea for a while now and am looking for feedback on it. Here's the basic premise:

Create a chamber that is designed to capture sunlight using geometry and mirrors. The basic design is a tube that is highly reflective with two concave mirrors at either end. Light is directed into the chamber at an angle as to cause it to bounce back and forth between the two concave mirrors.
My idea is that if the sunlight is "captured" between the mirrors, light can continually be added to the system and the energy is amplified until it is bled off in some fashion from either end. I got the idea after trying to roast a marshmellow with a fresnel lens and had considerable difficulty because the marshmellow was reflecting much of the light off. The fresnel lens would start a piece of wood on fire instantly, but the marshmellow remained cool after 2 minutes! So, I expect that mirrors would work for a significant amount of solar energy before being overwhelmed by the energy input.
Perhaps this is a crazy "pipe" dream (pun intended) due to some factors about light I don't understand fully.

I've got a couple of concave mirrors I found at a surplus store and am looking for a suitable reflective tube to use (approx 6" diameter) for some base level testing.

I whipped together a 3D graphic to illustrate the general concept.
Any ideas or thoughts on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Much Peace.

[jibbguy]

Reflective mylar sheet with contact adhesive for the inside of the cylinder?

I know someone who once invented a very nifty little pool heater using that stuff on a parabolic dish (and a heat sink, all attached to a flotation ring that let it just float around the pool). The only problem with it was making it safe in all instances to folks who happened to catch the glare at certain angles; it can be brutal if caught just right and even possibly cause eye damage so be careful!

I am not an expert in optics but i do not think you can magnify photons to any greater than that collected no matter how times they are reflected (and there will be small loss with every deflection). However, like a Fresnel they can surely be focused to harness incredible amounts of induced heat!

[Cloxxki]

It would be quite a feat to build a contraption that lets more light in than out, while keeping it bouncing around within the visibile spectrum. I've thought about it a lot, and will likely try some times more.
Perhaps it can be done with a toroid like light container, where all light is being reflected to "turn" one direction. With an "inlet" that doesn't effect this, nor allowing light to escape the same way.
Once you offer a deisgn that traps light based on current level of technology and materials, ir won't be hard to find someone who's try to build it.

[Aaron]

interesting optics

The only gain of light I know of is a PPCM (pump phase congugated mirror)
that has more coming back than hit it. It works on non-linear surfaces so
brushed aluminum verses shiny aluminum. You can read all the complicated
details here and the reflected waves are going backwards in time:
The Tom Bearden Website

I have an article I found that I posted in this forum somewhere about
waves that travel backwards in time carrying information with it... unusual
optical properties.
http://www.energeticforum.com/5291-post19.html

Interesting Magnetic Light
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...uperlight.html

I installed some tube lights in my kitchen and bathroom using mirror polished
aluminum tubes. If you search some of the companies, you can buy sheets
of it rolled up. It is so shiny you can get blinded when installing the tube
light when the sun is hitting it - no joke. You may be able to buy enough
to make a 6" diameter tube with left overs. That is the most shiny tube
material I have seen. You could always get some stove pipe tube at any
hardware store and use mylar to line it as Jibbguy suggests.

In some plant growing operations, there have been many tests with
using either aluminum reflective materials on the line to bounce light back
to the plants and there have been tests with white surfaces. The white
surfaces actually reflect more light to the plants, which surprised me
because I thought the best reflector was mirror.

I don't know what you could do with the light except for create some
heater like Jibbguy mentions.

I drew up plans for a drum machine painted black that acted as a pump
that would expand and contract in rhythm while sitting in the hot sun.
It produced work like a barometer except using heat and not air pressure.
Not sure if it works in reality lol.

I just remembered, there are some "anomalous" properties to polished
copper mirrors and something like this could be in the Stubblefield threads.

[Brownsville]

Hi Aaron,

Maybe a one-way mirror on the intake would keep light from escaping. I think there is a company near Green Bay, WI that is mfg. some kind of light tube.

[jibbguy]

Lol this thread is a fun thought problem

Other than the Craig Bohren experiment that Aaron mentioned (which i had forgotten about altogether lol),i think the problem is that photons can only interact with matter at the point of absorption.. Since they are "neither wave nor particle" (i have no idea what that means...never did.. SOMEONE please explain what the hell that old statement means lol... ).

So it is like they can't become "real" or measurable in our universe unless they make contact with something that can absorb them. In space, there is much light, yet since there is no atmosphere molecules to interact with it, it cannot be seen until it is absorbed by something. I've read that NASA polarizes the windows of manned spacecraft, otherwise the Astronauts would see nothing out of them most of the time.

So this would be the main problem with trying to create a "gain" i think, it will only manifest in "our" physical world when absorbed by matter, then it is just "gone", converted to heat energy... Giving us no opportunity to manipulate it.

Nothing to manifest it = It doesn't appear to "exist" in our plane (yet it obviously does "exist" somewhere).

Something to absorb it = It suddenly exists as measurable energy.

[tjnlsn255]

I might be way off on this but have you not described how a laser works?

Just a thought......

Hopes and Dreams.....

Tj

[jibbguy]

Lasers are "coherent light", of one frequency.

[Aaron]

tube light

Here is the company I got my tube lights from.
Online Store

That goes to the 13" one I put in my kitchen. You may be able to buy
just the tube $38 for one tube without anything else.

You can peel off that yellow protective plastic sheet and you will
have a seriously shiny surface.

If anyone wants tube lights, I'd recommend this company.
Use the ones with straight pipe instead of corregated tubes unless
you have beams in the way and need to bend around them.

Anyway, they have awesome prices. I have a 13" in my kitchen -
gives 500 watts of light when it is clear and sunny and 10" in a
bathroom that gives 300 watts of light when clear and sunny.

Takes a few hours to install each one.

[Golden Mean]

Thanks for the replies and feedback. I like the quality of people on this site.
Part of this idea came after talking with my sister who is a surgical laser technician. She was explaining to me how they amplify the energy using mirrors and I thought "Why not try that with Sunlight?"

The crux of the issue is how to make sunlight behave in a more coherent way (e.g. like a laser). So I got the idea that if light waves are going to bounce around inside a reflective tube with concave mirrors at each end that the concave mirrors would act like "gravity wells" of sorts because the light waves would bounce back and forth trying to find the most stable geometry in the device. It should be easy to test with a standard laser pointer once I get this built. Thanks for the ideas on building the "tube" portion of it.

I've done some research on similar tech online and found a company (SUNLIGHT DIRECT) that is already marketing light distribution systems using concentrating parabolic dishes, infrared filters and fiber optic cables to bring "sunlight" into a building for better and more natural lighting conditions. My idea was to use a fresnel lens (cheaper and easier to work with) instead of a dish, a magnifying glass to further refine the light and a fiber optic light pipe. The fiber optic light pipe isn't cheap so there's a gamble there in using it for prototype testing, but hey it's only money.

There's still a lot of questions in mind on "what may happen if it works due to a possible concentration of many frequencies beyond the visible spectrum" (e.g. infrared, etc.) or "how to effectively bleed off some of the light without using it all at once" (filters comes to mind), "how much energy can be stored?", and many more.

Possible uses could be for solar light energy amplification to run a sterling engine, light storage for night-time use, portable light storage (e.g. natural flashlight), etc.

It's a dream perhaps, but there's no way to find out without trying!

Peace to you all and thank you for your energy.

[rickoff]

Hmmm, have you thought about the possibly of using a clear tube wrapped with one way mirror film? Normally this type of film is used on vans and motor homes to reflect sunlight away from the interior, and also to afford privacy (you see out, but no one can see in). The film could just as well be used in reverse mode to allow light to penetrate inwards, where it would be reflected continuously by the mirror surface. Just a thought. See an example of this type of one way reflective sheeting here:
CPFilms Inc 36" x 9 ft. Mirror Privacy Window Film | PRS369

[tjnlsn255]

I wonder if a reflecting telescope tube would work....

It comes with one perfectly fitting concave mirror already.... you could just get a second one for the other end.....

In reverse you could let the light enter where the eyepiece is on the side of the tube.....but the eyepiece mirror would have to be removed....

Just a thought.....

Hopes and Dreams.....

Tj

[Cherryman]

You will need a temperature valve, because when it's get "full" it might start melting

[Cherryman]

I don't want to hijjack this topic.. but I always wondered.. Why is it when you heat and light up a wire from a lightbulb, or the heating element of an oven with, for examble a fresnel lens, you don't get energy back?

Why isn't that reversable?

Electrons in > Light and heat

Light and heat in > Electrons out?

(As you might notice, i'm an electric Noob ;-) )

[jibbguy]

When "going the other way", you are describing photovoltaic cells (solar panels)

...The only example of photons creating energy other than "heat"....

Or is it? Not really. There are some things going on with living cells that could be considered "photons into another form of energy". I'm not sure how to describe it, it is not exactly "photons into electrical" i don't think.

edit" Scientists would prolly call it "chemical energy", but i think that is a cop-out.