51–60 of 99 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be amazing to get rid of the traditional boiling water part of nuclear power plants. Is this what you are thinking about?
Yes, and especially for my pet daydream nuclear reactor in space, or on Mars, etc.
I wonder if it is feasible to make PV panels that concentrate the IR part of the light spectrum and guide it to a TVP unit through fiber optics.
So did they show an actual drone flying for days?
People seem to be misinterpreting this a lot. This is not about solar cells. This is about thermophotovoltalics, and the application here is using a burning fuel source to generate electricity. The "drone" the paper talks about seems to be a reference to another paper on unmanned sea vehicles though. Edit - to be fair the flying drone part is from the corresponding author.
Exactly. The paper is here: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/15/1903001116 The context of thermophotovoltalics is very interesting - conventional heat-to-electricity engines are limited by Carnot efficiency, which relies on a "cold side" and generally has low theoretical maximum efficiencies. This approach takes any hot emitter heated by any process - fuel burning, solar concentration, nuclear - and extract…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. The paper is here: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/15/1903001116 The context of thermophotovoltalics is very interesting - conventional heat-to-electricity engines are limited by Carnot efficiency, which relies on a "cold side" and generally has low theoretical maximum efficiencies. This approach takes any hot emitter heated by any process - fuel burning, solar concentration, nuclear - and extract…
So (one of) the advantages compared to a Peltier element is that you no longer need a cold side?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and especially for my pet daydream nuclear reactor in space, or on Mars, etc.
Too bad, solar cell don't like much radiation. Add shielding and all mass benefit will be negated.
^interesting part, the drone stuff is just click-bait
“The basic principle [of thermophotovoltaics] is similar to that of traditional photovoltaics (PV) where a p-n junction is used to absorb optical energy, generate and separate electron/hole pairs, and in doing so convert that energy into electricity. The difference is that the optical energy is not directly generated by the Sun, but instead by a material at high temperature (termed the emitter), that causes it to emit light. In this way thermal energy is converted to electrical energy.” [1]
"Fly for Days", Wondering what are the trade-offs here? Can those drones carry a load or cover certain distances to be of any functional use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. The paper is here: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/15/1903001116 The context of thermophotovoltalics is very interesting - conventional heat-to-electricity engines are limited by Carnot efficiency, which relies on a "cold side" and generally has low theoretical maximum efficiencies. This approach takes any hot emitter heated by any process - fuel burning, solar concentration, nuclear - and extract…
So (one of) the advantages compared to a Peltier element is that you no longer need a cold side?