Company Claims New Chip Converts Heat To Electricity

Dster76 writes to tell us that the startup, Eneco, has invented a solid state energy conversion chip which they claim will be able to convert heat directly into electricity or reach temperatures of -200 C when given an electrical current. While such a device could revolutionize many aspects of computing I'll keep my skeptic hat on for the time being.

Re:Long term plan ... what were they thinking?

[anonimouskiller]

actually ethanol from soy or sugar cane is a very clean energy source, and it doesn't require more energy to produce than it provides. Brazil has been using ethanol for more than 2 decades now, it's still cheaper then gasoline and polutes less. although the 'stoves in the lap' idea seems kinda dumb.

not bogus, not necessarily "disruptive technology"

[jetpeach]

So the technology is definitely hyped up in the article, but this is not bogus like oh so many of these types of articles on slashdot are. I'm in an electrical engineering PhD program and the ideas presented in the article are sound (i.e. there isn't any breakage of the 1st law of thermodynamics and no magic magnets involved!). The obvious question is what is this material that replaces a vaccum, this "properly selected semiconductor thermoelectric that is thick enough to support a significant temperature differential between the emitter and the collector in order to achieve efficiencies of practical interest" as this is the key to the technology. If they indeed have found a material to do this this is a very interesting technology that probably will make it into our consumer products, and possibly "soon".

Prior Art

[The Mighty Buzzard]

IANAL but I'm fairly certain the patents held by Borealis Technical Limited for their Power Chips line already covers this.
Have a look: http://www.powerchips.gi/ [powerchips.gi]

Re:Second Law of Thermodynamics

[djh101010]

The problem is that converting heat energy directly into electricity violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, not unlike perpetual motion machines.

Can you explain how heat (infrared photons, right?) is different in this regard than visible light (as in a photovoltaic cell)? I'm not busting your chops here, I just don't understand why the wavelength of the light matters in this context.

Re:Second Law of Thermodynamics

[k1773re7f]

Thermocouples [wikipedia.org] definiately do not violate SLoT. I in fact have used thermocouples and thermopiles to power low drain electronic circuits. It does require a bit of heat. And not all heat is converted. But it can happen and *does not* violate Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Re:Where is the energy going?

[wsherman]

Use electricity supply to cool down to -200 C.

That's not exactly a fundamental science discovery but if it's true it's actually pretty neat.

Oxygen condenses at -183.0 C and nitrogen condenses at -195.8 C so if these things became widely available you could make your own liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen.

Unfortunately, liquid hydrogen is down at -252.8 C so you wouldn't be able to condense the hydrogen gas you got from electrolysis of water to make your own liquid hydrogen and oxygen rocket engine.

Re:Energy conversion devices

[Plutonite]

Or you could use the "recovered" energy to power the processor fan, thus creating an automatic temp.control(if it is hot, fan will get juice, otherwise fan dies).

I still doubt they will ever produce enough power for a nice 3000RPM bad boy like the one buzzing in my case now.