South African academic in electrical energy from waste breakthrough

[Kevin Lancaster]

South African academic in electrical energy from waste breakthrough

Andre Strydom from the University of Johannesburg is part of a team which has discovered a rare-earth compound that creates new possibilities in generating electrical energy from waste heat.

 

[agel]

Nice going! That waste heat from car engines is something that I've thought about a lot in the past, glad they found a way to recover some of that energy - let's hope it doesn't take decades for this to filter down.

 

[Ockie]

So what, the heat can be turned into electricity which then in turn can maybe power the aircon of the car thereby making the fuel economy better when the aircon is turned on for example?

 

[mmacleod]

How much more efficient of a seebeck effect are we talking here?

 

[mmacleod]

So what, the heat can be turned into electricity which then in turn can maybe power the aircon of the car thereby making the fuel economy better when the aircon is turned on for example?

Yes, though this can be done already, its more a matter of cost and efficiency, current materials are not horribly efficient so the important question here is how much of an improvement are we actually talking about.
Also how well does it work in reverse, a supper efficient peltier cooler would be a much bigger game changer.

 

[furpile]

The problem with internal combustion engines is that they are limited by thermal efficiency. This means that they can never be more efficient than a certain value (about 70%), although in practice most engine are about 35% efficient. This means that 65% of the energy in the fuel is wasted, mostly by heat going through the exhaust and the radiator. If they can recover a significant amount of this energy, it will make hybrid cars a lot more feasible since you will have a lot more electrical power to assist the engine.