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Company Claims New Chip Converts Heat To Electricity
Dster76 writes to tell us that the startup, Eneco, has invented a solid state energy conversion chip which they claim will be able to convert heat directly into electricity or reach temperatures of -200 C when given an electrical current. While such a device could revolutionize many aspects of computing I'll keep my skeptic hat on for the time being.
I don't know why the notion should be so foreign. If someone told you they created a solid state device that could convert light energy directly into electrical energy would you believe them? Yeah, probably, because you have seen these in action already. They are on just about every calculator out there now. But there was a time when they were just an idea and the topic of fiction.
The notion of using heat is so different? Surely the technology is quite different I'm sure, but I would not be quite so quick to be skeptical.
Revolutionize computing? How about revolutionizing LIFE. If true, this would be larger than controlled fusion.
Hopefully investors will see through the zany longterm plan and focus on the merits of the product, it really does appear to be valuable across a wide range of industries.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
Ok, so it converts latent heat into electricity, presumably working like a heat engine with the cold side fixed at absolute zero somehow? If you add energy, it gets even colder and produces...more energy? Is it just me or does this thing sound a lot like a perpetual motion machine component? Either this thing is bogus or the article is misleading as to what it actually does.
I read the internet for the articles.
The description sounds like a peltier to me. Apply some current, and the device generates a temperature differential.
Can a temperature differential cause the device to operate in reverse?
Solid-state device that converts heat to electricity....
;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocouple
Invented 1821 - Prior art?
gus
P.S. Yes, I know that TC's rely on a temperature differential, not just a temperature...
.. if only.
Dupe from at least 2002. Both the slashdot article and the technology.
A few years ago (6 I believe) a company called Cool Chips LLC (which was traded on PinkSheets.com back then) claimed to have done the same thing. Unfortunately outside of the first round of announcements (which may have even been on Slashdot), nothing more was mentioned. In the comments back then it was hypothesized that an energy conglomerate or oil company would buy Cool Chips out to keep the technology from ever coming to the market. Me wonders if that might have happened, or if some of the primaries from Cool Chips are now a part of this venture.
Memories become legend, Legend fades to myth, and even myth is forgotten by the time that age comes again.-Robert Jordan
Burn a fiery death of an exploding battery.
OR
Massive Freezer burn on my lap and thus gonads.
This is truly astonishing.
I do not believe a word of this.
I would also point out, that even if they were to deploy large numbers of ethanol burning "batteries" the amount of ethanol, and the purity required would mean that the only way to produce the ethanol would be through hydration of ethene. This involves reacting the ethene gas with steam at a high temperature and pressure, needing large amount of energy as well as the ethene as a raw ingredient from crude oil. I really don't see how that can be carbon neutral in any way.
Intel announces new chip to turn electricity into heat, I believe it's called Pentium or something like that. It's apparently very very VERY very good at it.
See wikipedia for more. Seebeck is the reverse effect.
This does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. What it does is turn a heat differential (i.e. two objects of different temperatures) into a source of electricity as heat flows between them. Its purpose is to make systems more efficient- for instance, your laptop produces a lot of waste heat, and if we could recapture some of that lost energy it would improve your laptop's battery life. It also has the reverse effect of pumping heat (like an air conditioner) when electricity is applied to it.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
There are thermionic devices already around, you're probably looking at one. Vacuum tubes and CRT's are thermionic devices. Not very powerful ones--a typical tube only boils off microamps of current at under a volt, while requiring several watts of electrical power to heat the emitter. Not very impressive.
What? No you wouldn't. Ever heard of... Well, a freezer? That's a device capable of turning electricity into a temperature differential, and as far as I know, doesn't break any laws of Thermodynamics. It's called a heat pump. The device in TFA can also act as a heat pump, probably using the Peltier effect.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
According to the laws of thermodynamics, the conversion of heat to other forms of energy requires access to thermal reservoirs at two different temperatures, and there's a limit on the possible efficiency of the process, which is 1-T(low)/T(high). Their press release doesn't seem to be claiming anything that violates this, so it's not obviously voodoo science or anything. However, any such heat engine is only going to be useful when (a) you have cheap access to hot and cold reservoirs, (b) the temperature difference is fairly high, and (c) the efficiency of the heat engine is superior to the other practical heat engines that you have to choose from, or there's some other practical reason why this particular heat engine is better for your application.
Find free books.
"Brown also sees the chips ultimately replacing batteries altogether."
Especially if implanted in people. From birth. In vast crops...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I've had a chip in my computer that converted electricity into heat. It was called a p4.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
So the technology is definitely hyped up in the article, but this is not bogus like oh so many of these types of articles on slashdot are. I'm in an electrical engineering PhD program and the ideas presented in the article are sound (i.e. there isn't any breakage of the 1st law of thermodynamics and no magic magnets involved!). The obvious question is what is this material that replaces a vaccum, this "properly selected semiconductor thermoelectric that is thick enough to support a significant temperature differential between the emitter and the collector in order to achieve efficiencies of practical interest" as this is the key to the technology. If they indeed have found a material to do this this is a very interesting technology that probably will make it into our consumer products, and possibly "soon".
The problem is that converting heat energy directly into electricity violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. . .What this device does is convert heat differentials into electricity. . .It makes electricity while heat flows through it.
You are confusing heat with temperature. Temperature is the energy content. Heat is its flow. This device converts temperature differentials into electricity; with heat.
KFG
IANAL but I'm fairly certain the patents held by Borealis Technical Limited for their Power Chips line already covers this.
Have a look: http://www.powerchips.gi/
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
The problem is that converting heat energy directly into electricity violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, not unlike perpetual motion machines.
Can you explain how heat (infrared photons, right?) is different in this regard than visible light (as in a photovoltaic cell)? I'm not busting your chops here, I just don't understand why the wavelength of the light matters in this context.
What would make a difference if such a device could work for all wavelengths of radiation converting all nearby sources of light, radio, static RF, and heat into usable power. Not just a "solar cell" but a radiation rectifier. Even at 20% efficiency there would be plenty of energy to harness if the spectrum was wide enough.
then it's a Koobrewop
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
No this device doesn't.
I read the link. It looks like an improved thermocouple. It uses a heat-sink and a heat source just like an RTG.
As one person said to discredit the story "it is like powering your car with it's exhaust". A gas turbine engine does exactly that.
This wouldn't be a perpetual motion machine since it would still require a power source. What this device does is simply recovers some of the wasted energy from the hot chip and feed it back into the battery.
The only "questionable" part is this mystery semiconductor that conducts electrons a lot better than it conducts heat.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Agreed on the temperature differentials part, but I don't think I agree with the characterization of temperature as energy content and heat as its flow. Heat is the thermal energy content. It need not flow. An object that isn't at absolute zero contains "heat". Temperature is the average kinetic energy of the constituent particles. A brick at 100 degrees C contains more heat than a grain of sand at 100 degrees C, even though they are the same temperature. And that statement about heat is a statement about a static condition, with no flow involved.
Heat is the energy contained in random motion of particles. The key here is *random". If you extract energy from pure heat that's just sitting somewhere, you're reducing the entropy of the hot thing, practically by definition. In order for this to not be a violation of the Laws of Thermodynamics, you would have to create even more entropy somewhere else. The easiest way to do this would be to generate more heat than you removed, but then you're up against conservation of energy. There are other ways to create entropy, though, so it's not technically impossible.
The reason you can grab energy out of heat moving from a hot location to a cooler location is that that net motion is not random, so you can increase the entropy of the system by randomizing the non-random element.
Note: yes, all the above is a dramatic over-simplification.
The only "questionable" part is this mystery semiconductor that conducts electrons a lot better than it conducts heat.
Their patent on the solid state energy converter mentions that they have been experimenting with indium antimonide (InSb).
They also hold a patent for a way to make N-type semiconducting diamond, which may hint to where they're heading with this (or not.)
Turn e-e-electricity! into h-h-heat!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
HAH! Found it on their web site!
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If they are actually getting efficiencies near 40%, and the devices aren't too bulky or heavy, you don't use it to enhance an internal combustion engine, you use it to replace an internal combustion engine. Burner, converter, electric motor, and the job's done. No more catalytic converters, mufflers, mandatory pollution tests. No periodic oil changes, starter motors, or alternators.
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Heat is the thermal energy content. It need not flow. An object that isn't at absolute zero contains "heat".
In everyday language, sure. But not in scientific language.
From the wiki article: "In physics, heat, symbolized by Q, is defined as energy in transit."
Heat is the amount of thermal energy that is flowing between two bodies at different temperatures. The "thermal energy content" (roughly) is temperature itself. GP was quite correct.