Iron oxide cycle for hydrogen production

Found this while researching my own site.  When all else fails...

Anyway,  the wikipedia article links up to this one, which describes an intriguing idea that may be workable with a Fresnel lens that Rojas has been demonstrating on the Greenpowerscience site.

Now, I can envision a cycling of the lens so that it produces the hydrogen and then cycles back to consume the oxygen.  A way to split off the hydrogen from the oxygen must be found.  It may be in the article, but it is hidden behind a pay wall.

Perhaps I can think of one.  It wouldn't be energy efficient, but that might not matter.  Anything would be better than paying $3.50 gallon for gasoline.

A possibility here:  at the 1400 centigrade, hydrogen is split off from the water.  It will leave a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas.  The gas can be vented off into a cooling apparatus than will use fractional distillation to separate out the hydrogen.  You can use liquid hydrogen for this.  Rapidly cool it down until the oxygen liquifies, then separate the remaining hydrogen gas.

The cold hydrogen gas comes from the previous batch that has been cooled down to liquification.  It can be cooled back down as before and reused again and again.

Perhaps you can recapture some of the lost heat by setting up a Stirling engine with the cold side being the liquid oxygen and the hot side being the hot gas mix.  The Stirling engine can power another Stirling engine that does the liquification of the hydrogen.

Now, just take your oxygen and route it back into the reactor vessel. It will do the oxidation part of the reaction at the lower temperature.

You can cycle back and forth between high and low temperatures making hydrogen and recycling the stuff that makes it in the oxidation cycle.