Solarthermal and solar quasi-electrolytic processing and separations: Zinc from zinc oxide as an example

The advantages of using the high thermodynamic potential of sunlight for energy-intensive industrial solar thermochemical and thermoelectrochemical processing and the concomitant need for high-temperature separation methods are discussed. Example applications are introduced. The production of zinc from zinc oxide is used as an explicit illustrative example to show some opportunities and problems that solar energy presents. The use of quasi-electrolysis, which takes advantage of the high-temperature process heat available from sunlight, is introduced as a separation technique. Suggestions are made for additional kinds of opportunities which might be profitably explored.