EVALUATION OF PHOTO CONTRIBUTION TO A CHEMICAL-REACTION USING CONCENTRATED SOLAR-ENERGY

Highly concentrated simulated solar energy can be used directly as the energy source to carry out the reaction of 2-propanol to propene and acetone. A focused beam from a 1000 watt xenon lamp is used to simulate concentrated solar energy. The reaction is carried out over 1 % V2O5 impregnated on silica. In order to obtain the wavelength dependence of the photoreaction, the reaction is run with UV-visible cutoff filters which successively remove portions of the UV-visible radiation from the xenon lamp. The results demonstrate that the dehydration of 2-propanol to propene is highly dependent on the radiation in the region 300-375 nm, whereas the dehydrogenation to acetone is not dependent on UV radiation. © 1990.