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Domain: borealis.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to borealis.com.

Comments · 9

  1. Re:Similar work been done before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative · on Company Claims New Chip Converts Heat To Electricity

    They're still there - http://www.coolchips.gi/ - and they hold some patents on the process. They seem to perpetually be about 100 days away from shipping product - have been for years.

    Their parent company http://borealis.com/ has lots of technologies that are equally world-changing, and almost equally vaporous.

  2. The Logo by four12 · · Score: 1 · on Ultra Efficient Chip Cooling Passes Boeing Tests
    According to the Cool Chips press release, Cool Chips is a majority-owned subsidiary of Borealis Exploration Limited.

    "Borealis" refers to the Arctic regions of the world. The "dolphin" is actually a Beluga whale (no dorsal fin, funny shaped head). Belugas are native to the cold waters of the Arctic and near-Arctic. You see where I am going with this?

  3. Solar energy too by bleeeeck · · Score: 5, Informative · on Ultra Efficient Chip Cooling Passes Boeing Tests
    The company is also making solar collectors the same way.

    From http://www.borealis.com/technology/patents.shtml:

    Patent 5981866(StampPE)
    PROCESS FOR STAMPABLE PHOTOELECTRIC GENERATOR
    Abstract
    Manufacture of a photoelectric converter by a photolithographic or stamping process prior to coating with a photoelectrically emissive material is described. This gives an economic and simple means of mass-producing photoelectric converter cells, and in one aspect is analogous to that used for pressing optical discs.

  4. Efficiency, and potential uses... by chhamilton · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Body Powered Batteries -- Thermoelectrics
    The upper bound on efficiency of these things is governed by the Carnot cycle limit; so for a temperature gradient from T2 down to T1, your upper bound is (T2-T1)/T2. So, I the power generation is limited by the surface area of the thing (governing the wattage of heat going through it) and the temperature gradient itself.

    I guess if we assume a skin temperature of 34 celsius (307 K), and an ambient temperature of 20 C (293 K), then our efficiency is bounded by about 4.5%. Given that we dissipate on average 64W/m^2 at idle, and a "fingernail" sized device (1.5 cm^2), we should have about 0.001 W available to us, or 0.4 mW assuming 100% of Carnot cycle efficiency. At 1.5V, this gives a maximum current output of 0.27 mA. Since they are getting about 10 microA, then we can assume they see an efficiency of about 4% themselves. So, it seems like there's room to grow!

    Maybe they'll be able to power those PDA's after all!

    There's a quick discussion here with regards to human-body-power available for wearable computing.

    Also, there's another company that builds thermo-ionic power generating chips (cleverly named PowerChips) called Borealis. They see them being used as a second-stage on typical gas turbine/etc.. generators. They claim to see 20% efficiency wrt the Carnot cycle limit, a few orders of magnitude better than most thermo-electric (Peltier based) generators.

    BTW: All these calculations are very "back of the envelope"!

  5. Re:Why not collect that heat? by bungalow · · Score: 1 · on Cooling Hardware With Microfans

    Borealis claims to have found this, but very little data is available except a press release.

    It's an excitiong promise, but it appears to be quite gaseous.

  6. Re:Other Usage by bungalow · · Score: 1 · on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink
    Another approach would be to use chips to convert heat back into electricity. This seems to be (quite lofty) goal of borealis

    The press release describes their goals, but is a bit fluffy.

    More meat can be found on their explaination page

  7. Re:Other Usage by bungalow · · Score: 1 · on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink
    Another approach would be to use chips to convert heat back into electricity. This seems to be (quite lofty) goal of borealis

    The press release describes their goals, but is a bit fluffy.

    More meat can be found on their explaination page

  8. Re:Other Usage by bungalow · · Score: 1 · on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink
    Another approach would be to use chips to convert heat back into electricity. This seems to be (quite lofty) goal of borealis

    The press release describes their goals, but is a bit fluffy.

    More meat can be found on their explaination page

  9. A better Electric Traction motor by scotch51 · · Score: 1 · on Electronic Valves For Diesel Engines
    Several exist, here's a link to one.

    http://www.borealis.com/motor/index.htm The Chorus motor is a multiphase AC motor which has low end torque similar to a DC motor and better high RPM efficiency than a standard AC motor.

    The company that developed it has been very careful about patent and trade secret issues, so the progress bringing this engine to market has been painfully slow. A tech to watch though.