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Ohio Researchers Advance Heat Reclamation Technologies
Downchuck writes "Researchers at Ohio State University claim to have synthesized a new material capable of delivering electricity directly from heat, at an efficiency far better than existing thermoelectric materials. Scott at ArsTechnica has an interesting take: 'Merge this with the new MIT solar dish and you're in business!'"
But I like this better.
What?
Finally, we have a truly renewable source of energy - we can just harness all the hot air coming from our politicians.
It's not possible to make electricity directly from heat. It is possible to make it from a difference in heat between two points.
Bruce Perens.
The new material contains thallium. Greenpeace will have a field day with this one.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Could it be used to get more power out of a nuclear power plant?
You just got troll'd!
Peltier elements are used to rapidly cool small surfaces (such as PCR racks, etc), and they use electricity and some trick of semiconductors to do it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect). So this is a reverse peltier effect then? cool...
"Laziness is an optimisation protocol"
That material reach its peak at 950F (~500C). Not sure if MIT approach will worth combining with this as maybe the area needed could make electricity by other means.
But there are a lot of areas where heat is produced, and some of this could be used to get extra electricity.
Maybe the most important point, at what cost? how rare/expensive is that new material? If is very, maybe the main use would be not for our normal lifes, but maybe for i.e. space probes.
From the article: "the material is most effective between 450 and 950 Fahrenheit" So simply plug this into a geothermal source, instant energy solution until Earth's core freezes.
Thallium accumulates in your testicles. I remember hearing stories about labs handling thallium where only women were allowed.
Heremans' team is continuing to work on this patent-pending technology.
The article at the Green Car Congress site titled New Approach to Developing Thermoelectric Materials Doubles Efficiency" has a lot more scientific details than that article linked from the summary, especially on the actual formula that determines "zT", which is the thermoelectric conversion efficiency coefficient:
And also detailed nanomaterials engineering analysis of the quantum structure of the quantum chemistry's thermoelectric effects.
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make install -not war
No mention of actual cost as far as I can tell. It's twice as efficient but does it cost 100 times more or twice as much? The former probably makes it far less useful, the latter would be great.
... contain a link to a possibly more useful article with some more comprehensible numbers:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21125/
e.g. The device could increase fuel efficiency of vehicles by approximately 10 percent.
Merge this with the new MIT solar dish and you're in business!'
Ah cool, now we know:
Even though that article linked from the summary says that typical engines in cars get about 25% of the gasoline's energy content into car motion, it's actually about 20%. That's a lot of wasted energy: about 4:1 waste:use.
But lots of combined cycle plants (like CCGT gas turbines) reclaim a lot of their waste heat into more power. Taking a maximum mechanical power extraction of 60% of the gas' energy up to 85% by heating steam, which is an additional 25% of the original mechanical power.
CCGT reclamation tech is probably not practical for vehicles, so this new material is a welcome advance. Especially if the researchers get the zT from its new 1.5 high to its predicted 3.0 or so. But in fact DARPA has funded Trinh Vo at Lawrence Livermore National Labs to grow nanowires that already have a zT at 3.
More of that kind of material research is very welcome, because at zT 3, these materials can replace freon refrigerators with the same electrical efficiency. Since freon refrigerators require lots of energy to build, and then to recycle, replacing them with a simple material that can scale to any size (including very small, as in microelectronics), means a vast sector of modern industry, including transportation, could switch. If making the material is less energy intensive, and less reliant on a limited critical resource than the freon refrigerators or the CCGT reclamation systems, global energy efficiency could take a giant leap.
A leap that could be just around the corner, in Ohio.
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make install -not war
unobtainium.
Unobtanium anyone?
My UID is prime... is yours?
What's this power efficiency rating? How much is 1.5 in God's honest Watts per Kelvin, or a simple percentage of power in/power out?
15. Windows Vista 4 (0%)
Something is especially rotten in Denmark, and that #15 score can't be correct, either. Or caaaan it?
A while back there was an article on /. about a "quantum afterburner" : a device that could directly extract energy from a heat source, say, car exhaust, in the form of a laser beam.
Here's a link to the cached Nature article : http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:RV6U7lxRqFUJ:www.nature.com/nsu%255C/nsu_pf/020128/020128-3.html+quantum+laser+heat+car+exhaust&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
jdb2
Just attach a generator to the lower jaws to my husband and his mother. The energy they produce by moaning about the heat should cool the whole of Cologne for the summer.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
This advance's benefits are all described in terms of an increased zT now up to 1.5, predicted to go up to 3 or so in the really perfected version of the material. But what does "zT" mean in actual efficiency?
In real terms, let's say that a car engine today consumes about 300KW total contained in its gasoline flow, converting about 20% of that into 60KW for forward motion, and about 60% of that into about 180KW of heat (out the exhaust, and heating the engine/radiator, car and road). If the zT 1.5 material were used at maximum effectiveness in capturing some of that 60%/180KW waste heat as electricity, how many KW of electricity would it put out, into, say, a battery?
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make install -not war
Remember a few days ago there was an article about paint being able to help absorb sunlight for use on solar panels, well combining the two could actually work with absorbing light and heat energy from the sun.
I wonder what this kind of technology, once sufficiently advanced enough to absorb the high levels of heat, could do to change nuclear reactor designs.
If this stuff can efficiently convert heat to electricity with very little energy input to manufacture it (compared to, say, steam engines), and can withstand high temperatures without being destroyed, what would it do to geothermal electric production?
Would it not only increase the efficiency of the plants, but perhaps also make accessible lots of geothermal that is expensive to reach with today's bulky mechanical probes? Could we just drill to hot depths, then snake cables down it, and "plug into the ground"?
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make install -not war
An achievement made up of toxic elements, the first being rat poison, the last being the rarest there is. Chances are this won't be cheap to make nor to dispose of, and I wonder what hazards it would pose to the environment if released (vehicles do crash or get abandoned from time to time).
Use power to shift heat or generate power from heat flow.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Here's a link to the pre-print :
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0105135
jdb2
Take your Zyprexa, please!
justa lurker
That should be THE Ohio State University in the original posting. They get PO'ed without the definite article.
Sweet. Without actually researching further than a couple links, it looks as if this doo-hickey thing-a-ma-bob will be able to replace alternators (or in some few cases, generators) on vehicles. Sweet. It wonÂt wear out, since there are no moving parts. ItÂll last the lifetime of most vehicles, reducing upkeep expenses, it should weigh considerably less than an alternator, which will help fuel efficiency. I like it. Heck, you canÂt HELP liking it!! Hope it makes itÂs way to market soon!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System? Seriously, this one is being developed to operate at lower temps. I wonder if this new one will work better or not? But it sure would be useful to add one (or both) of these to say power plants to absorb some of the heat and continue generating more electricity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Where's my thermoelectric flying car, goddam it!
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
I love Slashdot!
Who about this: www.dotyenergy.com
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
A few years ago I investigated thermoelectric generators and contacted the suppliers. The unit is basically a thermoelectric generator, air-cooled, with a propane heater providing the hot side. Which at first sight looks very simple. The conversation went something like this.
"You don't want this, it's not economic."
"Nor is spending $10000 on a new generator just to produce an average 50 watts."
"It still isn't economic."
"Perhaps I'm an eccentric millionaire?"
"Still not worth it."
In fact, they flatly refused even to quote. Which suggests that current thermoelectric technology, with all the peripherals, is hugely expensive. So how is it suddenly going to be easy and cheap to stick this in a car exhaust?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
"The invention, thallium-doped lead telluride, is twice as efficient as the second most efficient material used in thermoelectric power." Erm, how much more efficient is it than the FIRST most efficient material?
The damn peace & freedom loving French ( I hate them ;-) )did it up in the Pyrenees back in the 70's
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909204,00.html
This is where it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odeillo
Excuse me, shouldn't it be THE Ohio State University?
I was a lab grunt for Dr. Shams (not sure of spelling, Pakistani guy) and Dr. Sheng at the University of Arkansas on the superconductivity lab. Dr. Sheng actually held the world record on high temperature superconductors for about 5-8 years, for Tl2Ca2Cu3Ox (a thallium based ceramic superconductor).
Our only precautions were to put on a mask and latex gloves before opening the thallium bottle and to clean up any spills. I had been told that about 4 grams was enough to kill me, and it accumulates as it's a heavy metal.
I'm fine and apparently quite fertile, since I have three kids and we only meant to have two :-) All are perfectly healthy.
This is *not* intended as an anecdote to convince you that handling thallium is safe. I just thought it was interesting that we didn't have more safety features in place. I hope they do now!
Meny have pointed out that such a device is useless w/o a temperature gradient. However, when such a gradient exists, there is a solution that is much more potent, commercially available and suitable for use in most environments that I can think of right now. I'm of course talking about the Stirling engine!
During extremely favourable conditions such a device, combined with a generator, can turn as much as 30% of the energy in the gradient into electrical power!!! That, my friends, is a lot!
A more polite and probable outcome, like 10%, is still excellent when there is a source of heat that would otherwise go to waste. This new device may fill some nische, but once enegry prices have risen enough the Sterling enginge will be king!
That's neat and all, but the carnot efficiency of your wind generator is very low, so you have to use *much* greater area than with a traditional solar-thermal generator.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Actually, there are temporary vacations from Thermodynamics happening all the time at the nano-scale level. The "laws" of thermodynamics are "laws" of averages over astronomical (standard units being 6.023x10^23 molecules) numbers. There is no law that says your room temperature glass of water can't suddenly begin to boil while sporting ice cubes. It is just astronomically improbable (but not improbable enough to power a starship). For that matter, resurrection from the dead is not impossible - just astronomically improbable (the same can be said for abiogenesis).
for the 90 day holiday to apply to each car independently. *Obviously* you don't want everything going on gravity vacation at once.
That may be the price of avoiding extreme temperatures and pressures. The relative safety and reliability seems worth it to me. Efficiency isn't the only game in town. "Efficient" batteries in cell phones and laptops are a case in point.
What?
He obviously meant temperature, not heat.
With this correction, he's right. Nature obhors a gradient, and thus from a gradient one can extract work. Heat, in and of itself, is not free energy.
Perhaps. But you're talking about orders of magnitude more land area for plants of the same output, and the same "fuel source" And not only that, but "traditional" solar plants only need polished aluminum in any abundance. The materials which must withstand extreme temperatures are much better utilized in a concentrated location.
I'm not sure where your analogy was going, though. Both laptop and cell phone batteries are efficient* and compact *at least as compared to other mass-produced batteries. The solar tower you boost is neither.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm not talking about portable installations. I'm going with the idea that the mad craving for efficiency can lead to dangerous machinery. Using the batteries as the example. Small efficient batteries can't dissipate the heat so well. We have plenty of empty land. In fact most of it is empty. Very unsuitable for human habitat, or agriculture. I'm more inclined to go with simplicity and serviceability and the use of cheap, possibly locally available materials. Without the extreme temps, these machines seem more likely to fulfill these goals.
What?