improving waste heat capture devices

Come here and post ideas to improve waste heat capture devices. For instance, most of our energy is wasted through heat:




media.treehugger.com...
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So this lead to a conversation on irc with other parties retracted:

en.wikipedia.org...
Currently, ATEGs are about 5% efficient. However, advancements in thin-film and quantum well technologies could increase efficiency up to 15% in the future.[5]
en.wikipedia.org...
there is ur quantum well
These structures can be grown by molecular beam epitaxy or chemical vapor deposition with control of the layer thickness down to monolayers.
theres ur graphene coating from coal exhaust go
molecular beam epitaxy would involve laser deposition

relevant citations (vapor disposition is self explanatory):

www.nature.com...

Oh I forgot to mention you would have to arrange the casimir plates in a helical pattern, which wouldn't be a problem if you used a configuration comparable to a nanoscale "rail gun mesh." If you end up having success in such a design, be sure to give me 5% of the royalties .

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a reply to: ginseng23

A very large topic!

The google term to search: transition metal dichalcogenides.

They are larger than mono layer 2D materials like graphene but not by much.

I think that they hold the record for waste heat to electricity conversion.

Imagine every boiler, engine, generator, AC unit, refrigerator, oven, concrete plant, steel plant, etc. wrapped in the stuff! A huge energy blanket around any heat source making electricity!

And see “metal oxide frameworks” as they are checking those out too for the same reason.

Thin coatings could be applied to most consumer electronics for improved efficiency.

Thin film converts heat from electronics into energy

This study reports new records for pyroelectric energy conversion energy density (1.06 Joules per cubic centimeter), power density (526 Watts per cubic centimeter) and efficiency (19 percent of Carnot efficiency, which is the standard unit of measurement for the efficiency of a heat engine).

These thin films aren't terribly efficient just yet. Further research into this field would eventually lead to very high heat conversion rates that would aid in increasing the efficiency of electronics overall.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Ah fascinating I have not heard of transition metal dichalcogenides prior to this, thank you.

a reply to: projectvxn

Indeed, the conversion and storage of systems will be a delicate matter.

a reply to: ginseng23

Well, pyroelectric converters have a theoretical limit of ~50%. Although there are claims that up to 80% might be possible. They require oscillating temperature to work though. So your cooling system will be more complex. On the other side they are effective even for small temperature deltas.

a reply to: moebius

electro-osmosis, Capillary electrophoresis utilizing carbon nanotubes and this methodology:


en.wikipedia.org...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

and the coolant:

www.sciencedirect.com...



since fresnel lenses are mentioned you can use different filters and doping agents within your lenses to regulate the range of temperature required at each given gate or step.

a reply to: ginseng23
actually upon further thought, in certain environments since water would be a limiting factor, this may lead towards a far favorable cooling method:

When the surface enters into contact with sunlight (or some LED lights), titanium dioxide particles are activated which use light energy to transform the moisture in the air into oxidizing agents which destroy the nitrogen dioxide particles and contaminating agents and transform them into water vapor and salt.

The salt could even be utilized in the sand blasting technique.

But since you wouldn't want corrosive salt, the aforementioned desalination would still be necessary. As you said Moebius, cooling methods are rather complex in this design. Thank you everyone for your input! I hope this leads towards more efficient technology.


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a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

revolution-green.com...

I believe that this will be huge too.... Sorry it's kinda off topic but yeah.

a reply to: roguetechie

Not off topic at all, one key aspect is how to best use the energy harvested from heat and to store it. That and the following article are quite valuable pieces of information. The solar cell material mentioned will further increase efficiency.

a reply to: moebius

Another approach to enhancing efficiency is to apply Lagrange Multiplier calculations to your different nano structures. For instance someone has already applied this to photovoltaics:

www.hindawi.com...

So for a heat transfer capture device, the theoretical holy grail would be extremely near black body layers for stability coupled or doped with the honeycomb or helical transfer layers, organized in Langrangian paraboloid and Hyperboloid configurations to interact with the expected Wien's displacement and Stefan–Boltzmann values of your thermal radiation. Also one must consider Poynting vectors.

Those with an understanding of metamaterials will be indispensable in achieving perfected thermoelectric circuits that can fully integrate the Thomson effect.

(This is close to what I'm getting at: arxiv.org...)

Phononics aim to manipulate phonons and to control heat flow and thermal energy as flexibly as in electronics

Reviewing the evolution of materials that studied the Seebeck effect lead me to consider other forms of cooling processes as well, the Peltier effect. Thanks again for the mental exercise:
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: roguetechie

phys.org...

phys.org...

a reply to: ginseng23

Thanks for all the links these are very helpful to me.

Especially once I have my personal bootleg MIT multifab ready... (It should hold accuracy below sub 25 microns)

The Cambridge team, working with researchers from Aalto University in Finland, mimicked the structure of chitin using cellulose, which is non-toxic, abundant, strong and bio-compatible. Using tiny strands of cellulose, or cellulose nanofibrils, they were able to achieve the same ultra-white effect in a flexible membrane. By using a combination of nanofibrils of varying diameters, the researchers were able to tune the opacity, and therefore the whiteness, of the end material. The membranes made from the thinnest fibres were more transparent, while adding medium and thick fibres resulted in a more opaque membrane. In this way, the researchers were able to fine-tune the geometry of the nanofibrils so that they reflected the most light.

www.sciencedaily.com...

www.forbes.com...

Oh # how could I forget the core of this tech.

permaculturenews.org...

phys.org...

This came out about a couple months before I started this thread, and I just noticed it. Uses some similar technology to my ideas, and actually may help increase the surface area of such collection devices if down scaled.