What do a car engine, a power plant, a factory and a solar panel have in common? They all produce heat - most of which is lost.
Physicists from the University of Arizona have discovered a new method for utilizing heat losses and converting them into electrical energy.
Through the use of a theoretical model known as a molecular thermoelectric device, this technology was developed, which holds great promise for making cars, power plants, factories and solar panels more efficient in their operation, if we mention some of its possible applications. In addition, more efficient thermoelectric materials will completely eliminate the use of materials that contribute to ozone depletion. The research group was led by Charles Stafford, professor of physics, and an article describing the findings was published in the scientific journal ACS Nano.
"Thermoelectricity makes it possible to perform a clean conversion of heat directly into electrical energy within a device that lacks moving parts," said one of the research partners. "Our colleagues in the field of research tell us that they are quite convinced that the devices they designed computerically can be built and that they will have the same features that we noticed in our simulations."
"We anticipate that the thermoelectric voltage that we will be able to produce using our system will be a hundred times greater than the value obtained with other devices," notes the lead researcher.
Capturing the energy losses through heat losses has been one of the passions of engineers for a long time, however, until now, the idea of replacing existing devices that would be both more efficient and more commercially competitive has not been fully realized.
Unlike existing heat conversion devices, such as refrigerators and steam turbines, the innovative device does not require the existence of moving parts or chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Instead, a rubber-like polymer sandwiched between two metals used as electrodes is able to do the job. It will be possible to coat the exhaust pipes of a car or a factory with this material, which is about a millionth of a centimeter thick, in order to utilize the energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat in order to produce electricity.
The physicists take advantage of the laws of quantum physics, a field that is not usually reached in the technological-engineering development of energy production. The key to utilizing the technology lies in a quantum law that physicists call "wave-particle duality": tiny bodies, such as electrons, can behave both as a wave and as a particle. "In a way, an electron is like a red sports car," says the lead researcher. "The sports car is also a car and it is also red, just as an electron is both a particle and a wave. Both are characteristics of the same thing. Simply, electrons are less noticeable to us than sports cars.”
The researchers discovered the ability to convert heat to electricity when they studied polyphenol ethers, molecules that self-assemble into polymers - long chains of repeating units. The skeleton of each of the polyphenolic ether derivatives consists of a chain of benzene rings. The bridging chain structure of each molecule behaves as if it were a "molecular wire" through which the electrons are able to move. Using computer simulations, the researchers "grew" a forest of furrows placed between two electrodes and which expose the array to a simulated heat source. "The more you increase the number of benzene rings in each of the beads, the more energy you produce," notes the researcher. The secret to the ferrode's ability to convert heat to energy lies in its structure: similar to a stream of water reaching a fork in a river, the electron stream along the ferrode splits in two as soon as it reaches the benzene ring, with each of the electron streams fitting into each of the arms of the ring.
The researchers designed the benzene ring pathway in such a way that in one path the electrons are forced to travel a greater distance around the ring than in the other path. This fact causes the electron waves to be out of phase when they meet again in the more distant part of the benzene ring. When the waves meet, they offset each other in a process known as "quantum interference". When temperature differences are added to the ring track, this interference of the electric charge current leads to the accumulation of electric potential - voltage - between the two electrodes. Wave interference is a process used in noise-cancelling headphones: incoming sound waves meet opposing waves created by the device, thus neutralizing the background noise. "We are the first to succeed in exploiting the wave nature of the electron and develop the idea of converting it into useful energy," explains the lead researcher.
"You can simply take a pair of metal electrodes and coat them in a single layer of this material," explains the researcher. "In this way you have actually created a thermoelectric device. If you have a solid state device, you don't need coolants, you don't need liquid nitrogen shipments, and you don't need a lot of maintenance. "It can be said that instead of Freon gas, we use electron gas," explains the researcher. "The results we got are not unique to the particular mares we used in our simulations," the researcher said. "Any quantum device where neutralization of electric charge takes place will work this way, as long as there is a temperature difference. The greater the temperature difference, the more energy can be produced." Molecular thermoelectric devices will be able to help solve the problems that exist today in photovoltaic cells that utilize solar energy. "Solar panels get very hot and their efficiency decreases, as a result," says the researcher. "Part of this heat can be recovered and used to generate an additional amount of electricity and at the same time cause the panel to cool and increase the performance efficiency of the photovoltaic process."
"Using a very efficient thermoelectric device based on our design, it is possible to operate about two hundred XNUMX watt light bulbs using the heat losses of a car," said the researcher. "In other words, the efficiency of the vehicle can be improved by about twenty-five percent, a value that can be ideal for hybrid vehicles since they use an electric motor in any case."
34 תגובות
BSD
Peace.
For some time I have been debating the problem of charging small batteries (batteries) for use by adults, such as activating emergency devices in the form of a clock. The adults are not aware/forget to take care of the battery drain problem and then the device they carry is worthless.
Is it possible to use body heat to charge the battery (after adjustment, of course)
Thanks
Oren, today.. we already understand that energy is found in almost everything, everywhere and in a variety of forms (wind-movement, sun-heat and radiation) the interest in understanding the concept of photons or electrons in the last century in parallel with quantum theory, and subsequently to the focus on green energy in recent years throughout the world to think differently. Energy is there and endless, the idea is from the beginning in my opinion to build devices that simply consume less and do more. Temp differences, magnetic motors, solar cells with focusing sun rays using mirrors and lenses.. there is no end to it
Oren, you have good intuition.
This is applicable but inefficient because the machine evaluation parameter includes consideration of size and price.
I mean, what you are proposing is actually a bigger and more expensive engine that will provide better efficiency,
And the balance that exists regarding the issue in engines as of today states that it is possible engineeringly but not economically.
Hello. I wanted to ask a question that has been bothering me for a long time:
Regarding the loss of heat in engines, etc., is it possible to heat a liquid whose melting temperature is lower than that of water (such as alcohol if I'm not mistaken, but not necessarily this substance) and actually use the steam generated from it to produce energy, in exactly the same way that water steam is used to produce energy?
The reason I ask about materials with a lower melting point than water is that in situations like solar panels for example, there is a problem of heat energy loss, but this energy cannot be used to heat water to steam in the way I talked about, because the heat is not high enough (if I'm not mistaken...).
Therefore, if we can create a system around the heated parts that will heat some liquid, use its steam, condense it, and God forbid, we can increase the efficiency. This is my unfounded theory. what do you think?
I wanted to add that I do not understand and do not pretend to understand physics at a high level, and my question is purely based on questions...
Guys, no way. The article describes a situation where temperature differences exist on both sides of the thin paint layer. Theoretical situation only. In practice, inside the paint there is a low to negligible temperature drop and most of the temperature drop will take place from the surface of the paint and into the flow. And hence there is no energy to utilize (the second law - the work is equal to the higher temp minus the lower and all this is divided by the higher temp.)
Michael
A note on the issue of interference:
In order to produce a quantum entanglement of the electron with itself at a finite temperature, several phenomena must be observed:
First, because of the final temperature, the different electrons will have a different energy and therefore a different wavelength, and therefore this will weaken the overall interference picture. Second, the final temperature causes vibrations of the benzene rings (phonons) that interact with the electrons and destroy their phase, i.e. erasing the interference image. It is not clear from the article which, if any, of these effects were taken into account or whether they are relevant at all.
Excellent,
Now I want one on the pressure cooker,
and connect it to the kettle.
Danish:
As I said - random tenses contradict the conditions of the riddle in which it is stated, and I quote:
"The frequency of the buses at the station near the guy's house was the same - once every 20 minutes."
As I have already said, under conditions of random time gaps, the result is unlikely (even if it is possible).
With your level of attention to the exact wording of things, I am no longer sure what you mean by the question you raised. It is clear that two processes that can be random in themselves can be dependent on each other.
By the way - particles intertwined in quantum theory provide us with a "living" example of this.
sympathetic:
Your speculation regarding the asymmetry of the ring is exactly what is written in the article, so it is also my speculation - with a small difference.
In my opinion, the meaning is that each electron that reaches the ring "passes" through both paths (superposition) and struggles with itself
The riddle itself is only intended to illustrate the phenomenon, which is probably hidden at the base of the article. The guy's arrival times at the station are random, and we would expect him to visit his friends equally, but what breaks the symmetry is the bus schedule: if the bus for company A regularly arrives one minute after the bus for company B, then in a uniform sample of twenty minutes between the arrivals of the buses, it is 19 out of 20 minutes the next bus will be the one leading to Company B.
In analogy to the article, heat is a random oscillation of the electrons, how then can you get an electric current from it, which is a directional phenomenon? The solution apparently lies in the asymmetry created by the researchers in the benzene rings ("the researchers designed the benzene ring path in such a way that in one of the paths the electrons are forced to travel a greater distance around the ring than in the other path").
A word of warning: I am not sure that I have correctly identified the physics at the base of the article, there are very few if any hints that the description I am giving is correct. In addition, I have not read the article published by the researchers and therefore this is pure speculation.
When the gap between the arrival of the buses is random and the trial time is fixed for example one month and the other parameters are the same. It is possible that he will spend most (even all) of the time on only one of them.
And for another puzzle: how to mix two random processes to get a non-random combination.
Danish:
I didn't know her either when I first encountered her. Of course I solved it and obviously no previous acquaintance with you is necessary to solve it.
What do you mean by "random time gap"?
If the gap is not a minute, then the chance of such a distribution over a large number of trips tends to zero as the number of trips increases.
If you are talking about the fact that the arrival times of the buses are random (and therefore the gaps are "drawn" every time) you are talking about a situation that is in conflict with the definition of the problem
I didn't know her and I don't think there is a need for that
On the other hand, if the time gap between the two buses is random, it can still be a situation where he will board one bus 19 times more than the other
sympathetic:
I wanted to write that I know the riddle from Dana but I see that there is someone else who knows it.
Yes, if the time that passes between one bus and another is short, for example one minute, then the chance that it will arrive in that minute is 19 times smaller
Hanan
I don't think Dr. Nachmani should be blamed, he is simply translating news that goes to the press about science. The news that scientists or universities release to the press tends to be sensational to attract attention
Lv. This article is also of the above type, but on second thought there is something interesting in it.
In my opinion, the researchers in the article demonstrated a certain theoretical curiosity that is very far from any application but is in everything
It's amusing. The idea, if I understood correctly, is similar to the idea of quantum rachet and basically it demonstrates that a current can be extracted from a random process (in this case heat).
To explain the idea I will present a riddle and I will be happy if someone solves it.
The riddle tells about a guy who had two girlfriends at the same time and he loved them both equally.
The two girls each lived at a different end of the city. The guy who was a student sewed and didn't hold
car had to use the bus. Each of the girls was led by a different bus, but with a different frequency
The buses at the station near the guy's house were the same - once every 20 minutes.
In order not to discriminate against any of his friends, our student friend decided to come to the station at random times
and get on the first bus that arrives. To his surprise, the guy found out at the end of the month that he visited
One company 19 times more than the other. The riddle is whether this is possible and how?
devil's advocate
Carnot's law, which states that the Carnot engine is the heat engine with the maximum efficiency, is actually a derivative of the second law of thermodynamics (see the last sentence in the introduction approx.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodynamics))
Therefore, its negation is the negation of the second law of thermodynamics and this is (as of today) a very well-established law motivated by excellent theoretical reasons and not only by experimental success.
Each of Dr. Nahmani's articles is a kind of revolution, but this article surpasses all of them.
For some reason the cumulative impression is of a scientific spin or promoting academic degrees, and I'm wrong.
devil's advocate
Wave-particle duality is an expression not a scientific law, the years must be distinguished. Wave and particle are complementary concepts according to quantum theory and cannot be represented temporally. In more technical language, a particle is an eigenvalue of the place operator while a wave is an eigenstate of the momentum operator. As we know, these two operators are not commutative. The wave or particle behavior is dictated by the measurement being performed whether we are measuring position or momentum.
Ami
It's not a fight between two electrons, but a fight between an electron and itself. In any case, when we talk about splitting between tracks, we no longer talk in the language of particles. It is not that one particle goes to the right and one to the left, but the wave function is divided between the two branches and in this case it is a wave phenomenon, particles cannot perform entanglement.
my father
The molecules are not symmetrical and hence the ability to generate a current. It seems to me that this is a kind of quantum rachet.
Total nano generators
This is an important step in my opinion in the direction of a systemic industry when several factories share infrastructure and resources such as a heat arc and treatment of emissions.
It's certainly interesting and it's not entirely clear to me either if the reference is to the temperature differences between the two electrodes or between the two tracks inside the benzene ring.
Moreover, it seems to me that there is a problem with a constant loss of current: if we start with a stream of electrons into the ring and they split into 2 and pass through it in two ways, one is longer and the other is shorter, then it is not true that the first pair of electrons that entered the ring are the ones that will fight in the end, because they You don't reach the connection point at the same time (the one who takes the longer route lags behind the one who took the shorter route). Therefore there will always be an electron deficit between what has split and what has condensed.
But if it works... then come on, put it in.
An electric car that is charged by solar panels and uses the heat of the engine and wheels to charge the battery.. not bad. Not bad at all
Best regards,
Ami Bachar
The reason that this type of device will not work is not related to thermodynamics or quantum theory, the reason is that the molecules are symmetrical about the direction of the electricity flow and therefore the electrons will not have a preference in which direction to move and no voltage will be created and it doesn't matter which side of the system they heat up.
If they develop a method that allows connecting a chain of benzene rings in a way that allows electrons to flow in one direction and not the other, it will be a revolutionary invention, but it is not mentioned in the article.
They will also need a chemical method to adjust all the chains to the same direction of action which is much more complex and also to keep all the chains the same length.
In short, the researchers are 15 years away from something that even they didn't think about.
I also tend to be skeptical
The article was published a few days ago, and personally I stopped reading at the quote that Ehud mentioned, although I am not comfortable with all of his words.
The duality of light is a familiar expression for the phenomenon even if it is not one of the main postulates of the Torah.
My problem with the quote is that there is no contradiction between being a red car and a sports car.
While a wave and a particle have different behavior in certain cases. That's why I'm not comfortable with Ehud's words, since there are different experiments in which a wave and a particle will be observed to behave differently, and in some we will get a wave behavior, and in some a particle behavior.
Although I suppose my discomfort stems from Ehud's phrasing rather than his intention.
Regarding thermodynamics, I'm a bit weak in the field, is there a reason that such a device would not be subject to Carnot's law?
I have to agree with my father in the above article a lot of nonsense appears. The nonsense does not originate in the translation but in the original news.
First, regarding strange sentences from the article. The lead researcher is quoted as saying: "The sports car is both a car and it is also red, just as an electron is both a particle and a wave. Both are characteristics of the same thing. Simply, electrons are less noticeable to us than sports cars.” The idea that underlies quantum theory or at least its accepted interpretation, the Copenhagen interpretation, is that the property of waves and particles are complementary properties, meaning that they are complementary. On the other hand, a car can be (and maybe even desirable), which has a red sports car.
The article mentions a quantum law that physicists call "wave-particle doubling". As far as I know, there is no quantum law called particle-wave doubling, there may be interpretations that talk about it, but there is no such law. The only law that might be relevant is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and it is much more general than claims about a wave or a particle.
In general, to obtain quantum effects, the system must be cooled. In general, as soon as a quantum system heats up, it loses its coherence, which is the property that allows entanglement. Heating in the microscopic sense means the presence of phonons (excitations of the crystal), while the phonons collide with the electrons in the system and cause the electrons to lose their phase. In more technical terms, heat entails Decoherence.
As a side note, there is nothing classically wrong (according to thermodynamics) in utilizing heat to produce electrical energy, this kind of process occurs in almost all power plants that produce electricity.
On second glance, perhaps to originate the idea for Meridor who at the time wanted to wake up the whole of Ramat Gan for the price of a single light bulb by an invention presented to him by crooks.
Danish,
You are right, your proposal (7) contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, but your claim that at the quantum level this may not be significant, since it means that if we take a macroscopic amount of matter it will not work (even if you split it into a huge number of small parts - precisely because the statistics are against you).
This means that you will only be able to extract a microscopic amount of energy from such a mechanism and since in half of the cases you will also lose energy it will not add up to anything.
In short - a refrigerator or any other macroscopic device that produces electricity by cooling something from the ambient temperature is not possible.
The idea contradicts basic laws of physics. The translation from the original article may be incorrect.
Because what is written here is nonsense
Although this contradicts the second law of thermodynamics.
But at the quantum level it is possible.
Nothing…..
When they invent the conversion of heat to electric current without the need for temperature differences, this will be an invention
Really.
One of the consequences of this is, for example, a refrigerator that does not consume electricity but produces electricity while it is cooling.
As I understood, there must be a temperature difference between the electrodes, and the greater the difference, the greater the voltage. Hence the production of voltage only in facilities that produce heat. The question is whether it is theoretically possible to generate electricity from a solar collector-like device.
Omer,
There is no contradiction of the second law of thermodynamics.
They simply found a way to convert some of the heat energy into electrical energy.
Every normal station more or less works on a similar principle. You burn gas/coal and turn it into heat energy which you turn into chemical, kinetic and potential energy by heating water and turning it into steam. And only then do you turn these three energies into electricity.
The idea here is that you take heat energy and turn part of it into electrical energy directly.
Eliran,
As it says in the article: the results we got are not unique to the particular dogs we used in our simulations," said the researcher. "Any quantum device where neutralization of electric charge takes place will work this way, as long as there is a temperature difference. The greater the temperature difference, the more energy can be produced."
The simulation was done for benzene, but there are whole families of substances that could fit this.
Avi,
Great idea! If you want to shower in cold water…
If this turns out to be true, it will be possible to generate electricity from the solar meter even at night
It will no longer pay to manufacture photovoltaic cells
I understood the part about the interference in the path in the benzene ring, but I did not understand why when temperature differences are added to the path of the ring (of benzene), this interference of the current of the electric charge leads to the accumulation of an electric potential - voltage - between the two electrodes
I would appreciate it if someone could explain
Thanks
Sabdarmish Yehuda
Completely ground-breaking and quite simple, the whole thing has been known for decades, the non-detection of the electrons in such a way was not thought of until today. Reminds me of the Seebeck effect in magnets and the thermoelectric effect in metals.
I wonder what the production cost will be...
post Scriptum. (and maybe on second thought)
Benzene, like many aromatic compounds, may decompose at the high temperatures of the engine,
Boils at low temperatures and an excellent seal is necessary because a reaction with oxygen will cause it to burn because it is highly flammable.
Chotsamza which is cancer...probably also at low levels
I didn't really understand the process. Isn't this a violation of the second law of thermodynamics?