New Alloy Can Convert Heat Directly Into Electricity

So we can now cool the oceans and create electricity at the same time?

Doesn't this solve our energy crisis as well as our (often debated, but still there) climate change?

Chalk one up to science.

*cough* thermodynamics *cough*

its impossible to simply pull heat out of something and make it cooler; instead there needs to be a flow of energy and only part of that energy flow can be diverted into usable energy.
Here, there needs to be a change in the temperature, which seems as though it would make it a bit more difficult then having a device that just sucks heat from its surroundings and breaks the laws of thermodynamics.

Eregorn,

Not seeing the issue. Heat is absorbed by the "magic material." Magic material, as a result, is now warmer and magnetic, it applies magnatism to a medium that can absorb it (read: coil), electricity is formed in the coil as the "magic material," having been drained of it's magnetic potential, cools. Simple enough.

note: huge, unscientific assumptions made in this explanation.

Maybe I'm just jumping in with both feet these days, but this sounds like something that every home should have a hundred of.

@eregorn8

"Its impossible to simply pull heat out of something and make it cooler"

Um... It's not *quite* that simple, but... Yes you can. There's a whole industry devoted to doing it. HVAC.

this would be great given these heat extreme summers i would buy bunches of these put themin a green house with extra mirrors and heat directing panels and attach a wire cord or whatever (i am not very adept in the studies of electrical grids and such) and voila electric bill will be erased FOREVER

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*growls*If you troll or flare I WILL MAUL YOU!*growls*

this meterial, if woven into a fabric, and placed over an exo skeleton, could lead to a non-teathered version.

well, not all over the exosuit, and it would have to be a fabric, but my point remains.

the difficulty is that current is generated by faradays law in a coil so it is not as simple as just applying heat. You need a changing magnetic field to induce current in a coil...

how efficient is it? also much better than turning water to steam. that technology is old and out-dated.

@eregorn8 According to Thermodynamics, heat tries to reach equilibrium. Therefore if the average temperature is higher than what is required to generate a magnetic field, Heat energy will naturally flow into the alloy, which generates the field. The field is then used to convert the energy, and transfer it to some other place. The Alloy is therefore cooler, and exterior heat again flows into the alloy, repeating the process.

It's BECAUSE of Thermodynamics that this works.

eregorn actually only has it partly correct, you can directly take the heat out of a specific substance, the way the law goes however is that once heat is created, say by burning something, it can't be destroyed, you can't "make" cold because cold is the absence of something, it can be dissipated in the form of infrared or you can spend more energy and move it to someplace more comfortable like outside your living room.

another interesting fact is that when you take the temperature, your actually averaging the temperature of all the surrounding molecules. a single molecule on your skin could possibly be hotter than the surface of the sun but because your have more than a quadrillion molecules to account for your temperature stays a balmy 96.something.

so my question is, what would happen if we isolated, using something like a maxwell demon, only the molecules of a specific degrees in a vacuum. what would happen?

to mars or bust!

I love how people are already filling the oceans and their houses with these when they have no idea of the cost not to mention if the fact they mentioned something about "rare", which might limit how much of the stuff can be made in the first place.

@tcolguin

Dude its just a website people comment on about hopes and dreams of the future.

Why must you tread on my dreams?

"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"

Don't piss on our parade BRO!!!! I want my friggin walls made of this stuff I live in AZ FREE POWER!!!!!!

You know what I COULD DO!!!!!! Finally leave the lights and not have to worry about these damn tree huggers moan at me.

Contrary to the name rare earth metals aren't really that rare, they're actually pretty common you just can't mine them in abundance in one particular spot.

just thinkin outloud here but mix these with black solar panels, the panels get damned hot in the sun. ever touch a black car thats been baking in the summer sun? that shits hot! also, possibly putting these on engine blocks. years away from any of this but still its a maybe

I think people have missed the HUGE picture here.
OIL! Gasoline. ANY engine!!!
you do realize the BEST most efficient engine is only 30% efficient. 60% of the that is wasted in the form of heat.
Take the Buggaiti engine for example. Its a 5000 hp engine with nearly 4000 hp lost to heat. Only 1000 of that even gets to the drive shaft.
This would push hybrid cars into into next century. imagine 200, 300, 400 miles per gallon or more.
F$$$ electric cars. they are a TERRIBLE idea. you still have to plug them in, and the electrical still come from burning coal or LPG, or the now "unsafe" nuclear power.
not to mention the production of electric cars is TERRIBLE for the environment and we have to buy 90% of the specialized material from china.
Hybrid was ALWAYS the better choice. this just makes it obvious for all those people who dont understand the negative ramification of instantly switching over to non gas burning engine.

Finally here's my untethered power system for my mech!!

Seriously though, this sounds like a good thing for hybrid engines and we can get away from those dumb idea all electric cars. If the temp change needed is small enough, then mount these on/near the exterior of a vehicle to store energy when you're parked. The one concern I have is when it comes to aftermarket mods. For example, I'm eyeing a new catback exhaust for my vehicle. If auto manufacturers are thinking of putting this stuff on a new vehicles exhaust system. Would I lose my shiny new alternate energy source? Alternatly, would my new cat back cost more since its now impregnated with with this stuff? I realize this is way waaaaaaaay out in the future but, the questions are still sound. Oh, last thought, what about the possability of adding this to an older vehicle as well? We want to get off of, or at least cut down, our dependancy on oil then we need to seriously look at a way to add some of this stuff to older vehicles.

If all you need is hot air politics can be our next green energy source.

Hopefully I'm understanding this correctly. Metal becomes warm. Metal becomes magnetic. Metal can transfer the energy from being magnetized. Metal becomes cool. Repeat

If so that's amazing. This needs to go global and mass produced. We would have so much energy we wouldn't know what to do with it given our current technological state

I propose to name it "Unobtanium" (The Core)

Ok so you have a metal that becomes magnetic when heated and and stronger when next to a permanent magnet. In current maglev train designs, heat of the magnets have been an issue. Wouldn't this solve that problem?

The metals being used in this material are not rare earths last time I checked. The "rare" comment referred to the properties in this material. Thus it would not be that hard to produce from a raw material standpoint. It doesn't mention the technique to combine the materials though. It also doesn't mention if the magnetic field is only generated by a constantly increasing temperature or if it is maintained at specific temperatures. The original article mentions a phase transition but isn't clear to me if the transition generates the magentic field or the new phase of the alloy does.

Is the hot/cold side always magnetic north/south?

If you had a cylinder of this alloy and heated both ends would the created magnetic field be strong enough to break the cylinder in half due to like fields repelling each other?

I’m sorry, but don’t most metal alloys produce Electricity when exposed to heat? We use the voltage produced by thermocouple’s to measure temperature every day.

Thermocouple: A thermocouple is a junction between two different metals that produces a voltage related to a temperature difference.

Throw those suckers on a rotor in a 3 phase AC configuration with a bunch of rare earths on the stator side with a biased set of copper coils set at like A' B' and C', and just simulate a moving field; the coils can't tell the difference.

This is great.

@DravenKnight:

If I'm understanding how this material works then it is not like a thermocouple. This metal is an alloy, a combination of different metals/materials. A thermocouple on the other hand, remains different metarials and is not combined. A thermocouple relies on the different metals interaction to heat to measure a temperature. For example, metal A has a heat "response" range of say 200deg, metal B is 300. So, the device is waiting for metal A to respond (note this is EXTREMELY simplified b/c for brevity.) Once metal A responds then the device knows the temp is 200deg. If metal B doesn't respond, the temp is at least 200deg. If metal B does respond, then its 300. If the two metals are combined then the predictability of the metals response is gone and the device is useless.

Its more or less the same way a home thermostat works. They lay 2 different metals on top of each other, both with different temperature responses. You set the temp to a certain tempurature and as the temp changes, the metals warp. Either making the contact to turn on the air/heat or, disconnecting it to turn off the air/heat.

Thank goodness scientists are working on this, not forum posters

I think thermocouples work by changes in resistance. This causes a magnetic field to form based on heat. Been a while since I've done any electronics work but doesn't an expanding magnetic field cause current on a wire or coil?

Wow sorry those were two different thoughts. Really tired when I posted.

It says the that process is highly reversible I wonder if that means that if you induce a current opposite to the current generated from this metal when it is exposed to heat will it resist changes in temperature?

For instance you put this in a 500 degree oven wired up to some car batteries, would it stay cool as long as current was flowing.

I can't see this violating any thermodynamic or entropy laws as work is being done on the system from an outside source.

Imagine if this could be designed to resist heat based weapons and used as a defense to laser based weaponry of the future.

Sorta of reminds me of the protective affects of polarizing the hull plating on Star Trek: Enterprise.

One thing missing - PRICE?
If its too expensive, it wont work.
How much will this cost to create, cells, sheets, ?!?

I'm impressed, VERY, as this also can be applied to electronics, added as a layer to heat syncs.

The more CPUS are puched, the hotter they are becoming, this could allow substantial increases in server computing. Hell this could also extende the life of a laptop for a few more hours as well.

PS- Someone mentioned electric cars being bad, they are not. The batteries themselves, I'm pretty sure, are nano -lithium iron phosphate which is LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than lead batteries we are presently using. Lithium Iron Phosphate breaks down into rust, a naturally occuring substance that is usually benign.

This sounds like an interesting material. Of course, without specifics, such as efficiency of energy conversion and price and availability of materials, this is just a lab curiosity, but that's the way it is with most PS articles.

@eregorn8
it dosnt "suck" the heat out of anything
and its not supposed to make things cool down
it turns magnetic wen it gets hot
and we can use that magnetic energy to make electical energy
y do ppl post stuff wen they really dont kno wat theyre talking about?

@inaka_rob
well i'll b damnd
u made it through a whole comment without mentioning japan
congradulations
ur still a fag
and there are way more applications for this tech than just cars
,,!,,(-_-),,!,,

Not sure if the unstable magnetic field would already be generated by the vibration of the atoms due to heating. If if isn't, just make the alloy vibrate rapidly. Voila. Shifting magnetic field. Use that with superconductive coils and a cold fusion reactor which generates heat via deuterium fusion in a palladium ribbon( not positive this works yet) and you've got almost unlimited power. Just convert water into deuterium via electrolysis and find enough money for the palladium and platinum (electrodes) and your set. No more electric bill. For you that is.