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At the Top of Their Game • 207

about half the cost. A single teaspoon of this powder has the same surface
area as a football field. Yes, that’s extreme absorbency. The silica-based
powder is further engineered with sulfur atoms so that when a mercury-
tainted liquid is encountered by the powder (or the other way around),
the mercury bonds with the sulfur to form a stable powder that is safe for
landfills. Normally, mercury has to go through an expensive separate step
to be neutralized.
This product, called SAMMS, has successfully cleaned wastewater at
coal plants, an offshore oil rig, and a chemical manufacturer. The product
holds promise for other materials, including the possibility of cleaning up
radioactive wastes by swapping out the sulfur with other atoms to do that
type of work.
We’d like to end this chapter with a story about SunChips snacks from
their Web site (http://sunchips.com/). While they are a part of a large con-
glomerate, Frito-Lay PepsiCo, they do live up to their name.

sun ChiPs

SunChips snacks are now being made with the help of solar energy at
their manufacturing facility in Modesto, California, one of eight locations
where SunChips snacks are made. To capture this solar energy, a solar
collector field was built by American Energy Assets for Frito-Lay covering
four acres of land and accommodating 57,969 square feet of net collector
aperture area. Prior to construction, the installation design was reviewed
and confirmed to be sound by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The solar collector system is up and running with a total generating capac-
ity of 14,700MM BTU/yr.

solar Collector technology
This ecofriendly process is explained further on the SunChips Web site:

A solar collector field is comprised of a huge array of concave mirrors.
These mirrors track the position of the sun throughout the day, focusing
the sun’s energy on a black tube that runs along the focus of the array. This
black tube is surrounded by a second glass tube that protects it from the air,
allowing it to absorb solar energy more effectively. As super heated water