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It says a ZT of 3.1, isn't that approaching 25% efficiency on par with more standard heat engines? Also more in line with say a solar panel for light to electricity. That kind of efficiency would be a big breakthrough if it where affordable, imagine the applications.
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So write the paper after that's all done.
You don't understand the difference btw a research paper and a product launch. A paper is to provide inspiration. In this case, a high ZT p-type crystal may indicate a new mechanism that can be applied to searching / designing new thermoelectric materials. It's not for selling you a working device that can be put in your shopping cart. (I did research in nano thermoelectrics and published a few papers in this field)
Heat is energy. In summer, the sun (rudely) gives me excess unwanted heat in my house. I need to expend even more energy to get that heat from inside to outside my house. (We call this process "Air Conditioning".) What would be ideal is if the heat energy could be converted into some other form of energy that I could dispose of. Maybe if I could turn it into electricity I'd put a lightbulb in my window and shine the…
I don't see why people are downvoting you, as you are basically wanting to avoid wasting good energy with air conditioning. Maybe people thought your tone was blasfemous?
I know what I proposed would require our understanding of thermodynamics to be wrong, but this is in response to an article about a material that converts heat into electricity. I would love to hook up this material to a lightbulb in my window and save money!
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I don't see why people are downvoting you, as you are basically wanting to avoid wasting good energy with air conditioning. Maybe people thought your tone was blasfemous?
People are downvoting because billpg essentially wants a perpetuum mobile, something that creates useable energy just from the presence of a high temperature reservoir. This violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Heat does not equal usable energy, what you need to extract something useful is a temperature difference.
Heat is energy. In summer, the sun (rudely) gives me excess unwanted heat in my house. I need to expend even more energy to get that heat from inside to outside my house. (We call this process "Air Conditioning".) What would be ideal is if the heat energy could be converted into some other form of energy that I could dispose of. Maybe if I could turn it into electricity I'd put a lightbulb in my window and shine the…
Or you could have a battery and store that energy to supply your house with electricity, thus reducing your bills.
It says a ZT of 3.1, isn't that approaching 25% efficiency on par with more standard heat engines? Also more in line with say a solar panel for light to electricity. That kind of efficiency would be a big breakthrough if it where affordable, imagine the applications.
You could also built completely silent refrigerators and freezers that last 100 years.
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I don't see why people are downvoting you, as you are basically wanting to avoid wasting good energy with air conditioning. Maybe people thought your tone was blasfemous?
I don't know about blasphemy. My intended tone was "telling a joke". I know what I proposed would require our understanding of thermodynamics to be wrong, but this is in response to an article about a material that converts heat into electricity. I would love to hook up this material to a lightbulb in my window and save money!
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You could also built completely silent refrigerators and freezers that last 100 years.
I suspect you would still need a fan to cool off the hot side, but very silent, very long lasting, and the only moving part could be generic easy to replace fans.
Having had the evaporator fan go out in an old fridge once, I think you'll find fridge fans not as generic nor replacements as easy to find as you might hope.
> Those could be installed everywhere from .. water heaters .. to scavenge some of the 65% of fossil fuel energy that winds up as waste heat. Modern condensing gas boilers for domestic use are better than 90% efficient, the exhaust gas is very cool so I don't think that thermoelectric devices have much to offer there.
Isn't the minimum exhaust temperature the same as the temperature of the heated water? How can it be less?
Also, cold exhaust doesn't exhaust (since it cant rise through a density change). So, if your exhaust is too cold, it will collect in your basement (CO2 should be a bit denser than air, so absent any drafts it'll collect)
The previous owners of my house installed my high efficiency stove improperly using the old brick flue. The fumes eventually ate away at the mortar and a few bricks fell I'm clogging it.
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I suspect you would still need a fan to cool off the hot side, but very silent, very long lasting, and the only moving part could be generic easy to replace fans.
Most current fridges have a fan on the cold side to circulate the coldness all around, and rely just on convection to pull away the heat (excepting RV propane fridges, which don't have a cold-side fan and have very uneven temperatures, but do have a hot-side fan because otherwise they don't work on hot days) Having had the evaporator fan go out in an old fridge once, I think you'll find fridge fans not as generic nor…
Interesting, I've definitely seen a normal sized house fridge with a fan on the hot side, but I don't know what is typical.
> I think you'll find fridge fans not as generic nor replacements as easy to find as you might hope.
Current generation probably not, but there's no reason these can't be your typical $20 computer case fan, especially on the hot side where there's no worries about condensation... for peltier elements you could even stick a off the shelf CPU heat sink on top (though presumably at scale you would build the heat sink custom).