High-Power Thermoelectric Generator Utilizes Thermal Difference of Only 5C (newelectronics.co.uk) 100
A silicon-nanowire thermoelectric generator has been developed by a team of researchers from Waseda University, Osaka University, and Shizuoka University. From a report: According to the Japanese researchers, this experimentally demonstrated a high-power density of 12 microwatts per 1cm2, enough to drive sensors or realise intermittent wireless communication, at a small thermal difference of only 5C. Silicon-based thermoelectric generators conventionally employed long, silicon nanowires of about 10-100nm, which were suspended on a cavity to cut off the bypass of the heat current and secure the temperature difference across the silicon nanowires. However, the cavity structure weakened the mechanical strength of the devices and increased the fabrication cost. The team says their generator has overcome this issue.
"Because our generator uses the same technology to manufacture semiconductor integrated circuits, its processing cost could be largely cut through mass production," says Professor Takanobu Watanabe of Waseda University. "Also, it could open up a pathway to various, autonomously-driven IoT devices utilising environmental and body heats. For instance, it may be possible to charge your smartwatch during your morning jog someday."
"Because our generator uses the same technology to manufacture semiconductor integrated circuits, its processing cost could be largely cut through mass production," says Professor Takanobu Watanabe of Waseda University. "Also, it could open up a pathway to various, autonomously-driven IoT devices utilising environmental and body heats. For instance, it may be possible to charge your smartwatch during your morning jog someday."
Forget 5C, how about higher differentials? (Score:4, Interesting)
Being able to efficiently convert heat into energy is a holy grail. Are these TEGs better than previous tech when you have large differentials?
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This thing could already power watches as if by magic. My watch battery lasts a few years, and if I did the math correctly, that's well below 60 microwatts. Surface area is more than 5 cm2, and temperature differential is well over 5C, so it should be plenty of power.
(Not talking about smartwatches, obviously).
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"This thing could already power watches as if by magic. My watch battery lasts a few years, and if I did the math correctly, that's well below 60 microwatts. Surface area is more than 5 cm2, and temperature differential is well over 5C, so it should be plenty of power.
(Not talking about smartwatches, obviously)."
I see, you have a small wrist, But what if one could tolerate a cold ass to power their iWatch?
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This thing could already power watches as if by magic. My watch battery lasts a few years, and if I did the math correctly, that's well below 60 microwatts. Surface area is more than 5 cm2, and temperature differential is well over 5C, so it should be plenty of power.
(Not talking about smartwatches, obviously).
InB4 panties with heatsinks/convection-cooling radiator fins suddenly come into fashion among women. :)
Strat
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I hear the "hum" of a new industry preparing to get it's...feet...wet.
Followed by the flesh-cooking sizzle of users with wet feet running electric appliances.
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Converting large differentials to useful energy is easy - on a large scale. It does not scale down well. High-performance TEGs (And ones that don't melt so easily) could make it practical to scavenge leftover heat energy from many industrial processes, improving efficiency.
12 uW/cm^2 isn't much (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless my math is wrong, that's less than an eighth of a watt per square meter.
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useful wireless? no, I think not, for lowest power class 3 bluetooth for example that 1.2 microwatts of the square centimeter is off by factor of 1000.
Re:12 uW/cm^2 isn't much (Score:5, Interesting)
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I know, pesky math and physics can be such a downer. how long are you going to have to charge for 1kb payload packet of bluetooth class 3 power?
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researchers often have to be like IPO marketers, make big claims or the funds dry up.
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Don't think about this in 2D like it's a solar panel. Fold it up and you can get 100 square centimeters in a compact space. Now if you can keep it generating electricity then that's great, but more likely you'll need to store up the electricity in a supercap.
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Some products only need to transmit once every 20 minutes or more. The snag is that you need to receive a lot more often and that ends up being a much large power drain than transmission.
A millisecond transmission is a snag in itself. To squeeze more data in you need more bits per second, but that also decreases range. Most independent sensors (not wired to a reciever) would want better range than bluetooth class 3.
Still, this technology could be a good start. Low power wireless computing chips are bein
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I'm working on stuff that needs a decade or two battery life (no recharge) and is wireless. Give it a hundred square centimeters and you're in a good range to help with this. The snag though is that temperature doesn't change a lot, but if you can store the electricity in a capacitor then it helps extend the battery life.
Re:12 uW/cm^2 isn't much (Score:5, Informative)
"experimentally demonstrated a high-power density of 12 microwatts per 1cm2"
Somebody need to work on their adjectives. Solar panels are in the order of 10-20 mW/cm, i.e. 1000x more.
If 12 uW/cm qualifies as "high-power density", then solar panels must be "super-power density".
Maybe the researchers are from Krypton.
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Solar is the default option because it's cheap and pretty good, but often you want to put sensors in places where there isn't much light. Inside buildings, underground (there is a lot of infrastructure down there), underwater, in permanently shadowed areas etc.
In those cases a small thermal gradient might now provide enough energy to do something useful. And 5C is only the lower limit, often there is a much larger gradient available if you have things like running water.
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Unless my math is wrong, that's less than an eighth of a watt per square meter.
Can you say "LOW, LOW duty Cycle"? You'd be better off with a small solar cell over this..
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A 5C temperature gradient you can have nearly everywhere.
A solar cell only works where you habe light, obviously.
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A 5C temperature gradient you can have nearly everywhere. A solar cell only works where you habe light, obviously.
9 Degrees Fahrenheit over say half a square meter is NOT that easy to come by and isn't going to net you much energy. But my point is a solar collector might be a better choice in a lot of cases because it's a lot smaller size for the same energy. Batteries and other storage devices can take up the gaps and you'd still have size to spare. Not to mention that most temperature differentials are caused by solar heating anyway, at least the ones you would want to be using.
I already charge my smartwatch while jogging. (Score:3, Funny)
I just leave it at home on the charger.
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I do even better, I left mine at the store.
Re:Trump will die in Federal Prison (Score:5, Insightful)
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Somewhat amazingly, Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to be a real thing. Seeing these types of posts basically proves it.
You're completely and totally correct, and I agree with you 100%: Donald Trump is in fact deranged. There really needs to be psychological vetting of candidates for public office so we don't get crazies in positions of power.
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If Trump dies, Pence gets in. His policy positions are almost identical, as both strictly follow the Republican platform. Pence would at least be more stable though, and less inclined to insult rivals and national leaders on twitter.
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Yet that's somehow still preferable to a president who is just one snappy decision away from starting WW3.
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Yet that's somehow still preferable to a president who is just one snappy decision away from starting WW3
Which won't happen. Contrary to popular myth there is no "Big Red" button that Trump can push to start WWIII. Outside of a retaliatory strike where nuclear weapons are first used against the US or her alias, the first use of nuclear weapons by the US government is a complex process that requires several levels of cooperation within the armed forces.
It was done this way to prevent just such a scenario as people with TDS like to envision about Trump rolling out of bed and pressing the "big red button."
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He doesn't have to press a button. He is Commander in Chief. There are plenty of things he could do to start a war. It's easy for a small regional conflict to grow, pulling in allies on both sides. That's how WWI got started.
The North Korea powderkeg, for one. His attitude has been unstable - he used to deliberately antagonise the leadership with twitter barbs like 'little rocketman,' then he moved on to proclaiming himself a dealmaker and negotiating the very rough outline of an agreement. If tensions flar
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Which probably won't happen. Unlike is predecessors, Trump has shown a reluctance to use military force as a first response. It is very doubtful that Trump would order any such attack against NK. More likely things would simply resort to the status quo.
I know the TDS infect media has so many people quaking in their boots about Trump starting WWIII but you should just ignore such scare tactics. We are doing just fine.
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He's the only President who casually makes nuclear threats against his enemies. (on twitter no less).
Which directly lead to NK coming to the negotiation table, which lead to a end of the Korean War, which lead to a path to disarming NK of its nuclear weapons. Not bad for a few tweets.
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Which probably won't happen. Probably. Are you happy with a president so fickle that the best we can say is that he probably won't start a major war?
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Plus that Pence is a political insider and doesn't have any of the baggage that Trump carries with him. He knows how to talk politics with out antagonizing his rivals. He is true political animal unlike Trump is.
And that makes him 10 times more dangerous. All the mistakes we are seeing from Trump people with TDS want to attribute to Trump being mentally addled. Which isn't the case, they are simply the mistakes of a political novice. Pence will not make those mistakes.
Since Pence's policy position
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Since Pence's policy positions are the same as the Republican party, he has a much greater chance to pull them off.
Nonsense. Trump's policy positions are the same as the Republican party's wet dreams; you can tell this is true because they have consistently supported him. The reason Pence has a greater chance to pull off anything is that he seems more reasonable to many people than the commander of cheese. That means he'll be able to fool many moderates (aka fence-sitters) into believing that he is more reasonable than Trump.
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I expect to die chained to a wall in one of the secret dungeons at Mar-a-Lago, right between Bobby DeNiro and John Stewart.
Signals processing for detection of temp gradients (Score:1)
This is a very useful signal detection implementation for low temperature gradients, useful in monitoring range fluctuations, and is obviously not useful for power generation beyond that needed to drive monitoring circuitry and software to communicate those gradient changes.
More like for nuclear power plants or battery cells with temperature operation limitations, or for use in industrial and commercial processes, where you need to run a resin at a specific temperature range to cure it before you apply it.
K
Anything USEFUL from this tech? (Score:2, Interesting)
"For instance, it may be possible to charge your smartwatch during your morning jog someday."
My automatic watch has been running without batteries for years, and all I have to do is wear it.
Millennial, please sell me again why I need this solution that lacks a problem...
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Not connecting to Facebook and Twitter might be a feature that people are willing to pay less for!
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They might say they use their watch for telling the time about as often as they use their cell phone for making phone calls.
Great a solid state Stirling engine alternative. (Score:2)
Doesn't take much (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a solar powered Casio watch that does atomic clock synchronization every day. It's pretty cool in that it keeps very accurate time and has been running for years and years. All it needs is some ambient office lighting to keep it charged everyday. I've heard the rechargable lithium battery will eventually wear out however.
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Another poster mentioned his uses a capacitor not a battery - I'm not an electrical engineer, but don't capacitors drain faster and have a voltage drop-off as they drain? My watch keeps time even without charging - I can leave it in a drawer for 2 months and it's still goin
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High-Power Thermoelectric Guitar (Score:2)
I gotta go to bed.
Uh, it's already been done by an amateur (Score:2)
see: https://hackaday.com/2018/07/0... [hackaday.com]