New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#1

Post by de6u99er » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 6:24 AM UTC

New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity
tuwien.at

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#2

Post by marius_k » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 6:52 AM UTC

Could this also be used to reverse electricity into cold-heat gradient with high efficiency?

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#3

Post by data-wrangler » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

This would be an even bigger deal for remote spacecraft that rely on the heat from on-board nuclear reactors.

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#4

Post by cperciva » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

marius_k wrote: post #2

Could this also be used to reverse electricity into cold-heat gradient with high efficiency?

Yes, the thermoelectric effect works both ways.

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#5

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

marius_k wrote: post #2

Could this also be used to reverse electricity into cold-heat gradient with high efficiency?

If you have a very small cooling job, yes. Anything above a handful of thermal watts is still better off using a compressor.

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#6

Post by icegreentea2 » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:01 AM UTC

marius_k wrote: post #2

Could this also be used to reverse electricity into cold-heat gradient with high efficiency?

Yes, the thermal-electric effect is reversible. It's sometimes called the Peltier effect (or thermal-electric cooling) when used in heat pumping mode, and Seebeck effect when used in electricity generation (thermal-electric generation).

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#7

Post by jcims » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

Every time some phenomenon arises from a recipe of fairly typical materials I wonder what other surprises nature has in store for us.

The idea that the crystalline structure plays a large role in the bulk thermal conductivity of the material is kind of mind-blowing at first and then retrospectively obvious.

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#8

Post by wcoenen » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

data-wrangler wrote: post #3

This would be an even bigger deal for remote spacecraft that rely on the heat from on-board nuclear reactors.

I think you are thinking about an RTG instead of an actual reactor.

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#9

Post by ttul » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #5

marius_k wrote: post #2

Could this also be used to reverse electricity into cold-heat gradient with high efficiency?

If you have a very small cooling job, yes. Anything above a handful of thermal watts is still better off using a compressor.

Until now... maybe.

Re: New Material Breaks World Record Turning Heat into Electricity

#10

Post by hinkley » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:15 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #5

marius_k wrote: post #2

Could this also be used to reverse electricity into cold-heat gradient with high efficiency?

If you have a very small cooling job, yes. Anything above a handful of thermal watts is still better off using a compressor.

We were talking just the other day about back-side power distribution in ICs. Basically you bury the power rails really deep, lap the chip down to half a micrometer, and add through vias to ge to the rails.

So now you’ve got a very thin chip and all the power comes in on the side with pretty much nothing else on it. I wonder if you mount the chip backside up, put these little peltier devices on the hot spots, if you can maintain a higher heat transfer rate.