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Ohio Researchers Advance Heat Reclamation Technologies

Posted by timothy on from the from-warmy-to-volty dept.

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!'"

6 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Technical point by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Technical point by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oops, I'm getting whipped for "heat in a thermodynamic sense is not the same thing as temperature". But yes, the point here is that they've invented better thermocouple wire and thus possibly an improvement in thermoelectric generation and maybe the Peltier effect. Doubling the efficiency of those things would not necessarily make them competitive with other processes for heating and cooling.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  2. Put that in a power plant? by 4D6963 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Could it be used to get more power out of a nuclear power plant?

    --
    You just got troll'd!
  3. Power Efficiency Rating? by mux2000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?

  4. Pity it sounds pretty poisonous by D4C5CE · · Score: 4, Insightful

    thallium-doped lead telluride

    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).

  5. Re:Hot technology by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well we are using Platinum in extremely warm car parts as it is. So placing rare earth metals in our exhaust system isn't a far out idea in the automotive industry. ;)