Peter Hagelstein, an associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT, suggests how close realistic technology could achieve the theoretical limits for energy conversion efficiency called the Carnot Limit. Since the surplus energy from gadgets and automobiles usually dissipates in the form of heat, his collaborative research with graduate student Dennis Wu aims at achieving 90 percent of this limit by harnessing this wasted heat.
Process:
As of now, the current commercial thermoelectric devices only achieve about one-tenth of that limit. Lest his claims should prove an overstatement, Hagelstein worked with Yan Kucherov, a consultant for the Naval Research Laboratory, and achieved 40 percent efficiency using thermal diodes. Their new system aims at converting heat into electricity with minimal power and harvesting a plethora of electrical power, i.e. high-throughput power, by employing a single quantum-dot device.
Some close parallels:
It’s a sort of improvement upon the findings of a recent paper by MIT professor Gang Chen as one more aspect, i.e. heat conversion into electricity, finds an honorable mention here. In addition, there is a company called MTPV Corp. (Micron-gap Thermal Photo-Voltaics), founded by Robert DiMatteo, and it is moving in the same direction. Anyhow, it might take few years to commercialize Hagelstein’s technology.
Via: MIT News
