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I envision a machine that takes in desert dune sand, arranges four individual grains into a tetrad, and uses concentrated solar light to melt some sand into gla
by logfromblammo 7y ago
I envision a machine that takes in desert dune sand, arranges four individual grains into a tetrad, and uses concentrated solar light to melt some sand into glass, to bind the tetrads together. Then it ejects the tiny glass-bound pyramid into a collection bin and repeats.
Like a Spacechem/Opus Magnum puzzle that has a dune sand input and a construction sand output.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoSounds cool, but very expensive. Energy spent in essentially building sand. Instead of the current process of just finding it lying around and hauling it to where its needed. An, no, 'solar light' isn't free. There's a cost in collecting it. And even then, it's worth something as electricity. Probably worth more than the resulting sand is (currently) worth? Basic mining and minerals is all, entirely and totally about the cost of extraction. It has to pay.
- i_am_nomad 7y agoCreative thinking, I like it. Pyramidal sand might be even grippier than the standard, cubic version. Alternatively, I wonder if just splitting spherical sand in half would work?
- saalweachter 7y agoParticle size also matters. Even if your split sand didn't cross the threshold from "sand" to "silt", the coarser sand is still better for construction, IIRC.
- vardump 7y agoSo a pyramid building machine in the desert? Hmm... :) If that ever happens, history does rhyme.
- alan-crowe 7y agoLike a smaller version of this 3D printer https://www.3dprinter.net/solar-powered-sand-sintering https://www.3dprinter.net/solar-powered-sand-sintering