Electronic devices and internal combustion engines are some of the biggest consumers of energy worldwide. As a side effect of energy consumption, they produce heat which is more often than not simply released into the environment. A concept published recently in the Journal of Applied Physics aims to put this waste heat to good use.
Methods already exist to convert heat to electricity, however they suffer from two drawbacks – either they’re only able to convert a minute amount of heat to electricity at high efficiency, or they are able to work with large amounts but inefficiently. This new method can scale to large amounts of thermal energy, while also retaining efficiency. In fact, the paper’s author claims that conversion rates can approach 90% of the theoretical limit – the Carnot Limit.
This development would instantly improve energy efficiency in any system which produced heat – laptops, cell phones and cars are prime examples.
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