Thermoelectric Generator With No Moving Parts

Savage-Rabbit writes "These guys have produced a working prototype of a thermoelectric generator. The thing uses extremely cold and hot liquids to achieve a heat transfer through a semiconducting material. This produces a voltage in the semiconductor who can produce up to 50-100 Watts which is actually enough for this thing to have practical uses. This generator could for example be useful in the chemical industry where many production processes generate a lot of excess heat that normally is simply lost. With a thermoelectric generator some of that lost energy could be recovered."

Comments

Free electricity...if you have free hot water

[alwayslurking]

It's an Icelandic company, so they're developing in an environment where there's plentiful hot water (geothermal). I'm wondering if you could get enough hot water from rooftop water-heating panels. Not the thoroughly expensive photo-voltaic, the much simpler black pipes full of water sort. They're surprisingly efficient even in colder climes: my in-laws in the North of England get most of their hot water from a set. The combination might make this very useful for isolated buildings, even outside of volcanic hot zones.

Thermocouples?

[Louis_Wu]

Wow, did that Icelander discover thermocouples? I can't believe the advances in science being made.

Seriously, at my university, thermocouples are covered in a sophomore year mechanical engineering class and lab.

Other uses

[taphu]

This generator could for example be useful in the chemical industry where many production processes generate a lot of excess heat that normally is simply lost.

Not to mention all the heat lost in even more common things such automobile engines.

Satalite power?

[charlie763]

Hopefully it could also be used in satalites. I always hear about the extreme temperature differences between the side that faces the sun and the other side.