RSSScientists turn car exhaust into electricity, twice as efficiently
By Michael Hatamoto | Published July 25, 2008, 5:27 PM
Scientists from Ohio State University have created a new material called thallium-doped lead telluride, which has been designed to convert car engine exhaust heat into electricity.
The research team led by Joseph Heremans said the material could also be used to help power generators and heat pumps. The new material is reportedly able to convert the wasted heat into energy without causing pollution, and do so more efficiently than was previously possible.
"The material does all the work. It produces electrical power just like conventional heat engines -- steam engines, gas or diesel engines -- that are coupled to electrical generators, but it uses electrons as the working fluids instead of water or gases, and makes electricity directly," Heremans said in a statement on the OSU web site.
Its expected operating environment, between 450° and 950° Fahrenheit, is the normal range of car engines. Just 25 percent of the energy from a gasoline car engine is used to actually move the car, so the discrepancy between necessary energy and wasted energy is substantial.
Published studies previously indicated as much as 60 percent of energy loss in a gasoline engine is because of waste heat that is not disposed of properly.
Although thermoelectric materials used to generate power aren't revolutionary, the OSU research team has made several small adjustments to make its material more efficient. They were able to double the efficiency rating from 0.71 up to 1.5.
An alloy called sodium-doped lead telluride previously was the most efficient material, which had the 0.71 rating.
The discovery by Heremans at OSU is the latest in a string of events that started after years of research by other universities. Michigan State University researchers who published a quantum mechanics report on thallium and tellurium in 2006 helped OSU better understand what they were dealing with beforehand.
Furthermore, OSU was helped in testing the material from Osaka University and the California Institute of Technology.
Moving forward with their research, Heremans and his team hope to further increase the efficiency rating of the new material.
So... how much power? What does 1.5 mean? How much of an improvement in efficiency are we talking overall, with respect to internal combustion engines?
Still looks like EVs are going to be a far more efficient choice. That said, strap this stuff to cooling towers at power stations...
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|Now if they could only harness the hot air spewed by all politicians and all of the fanboys who think you need to run only one OS at the expense of all of the others, they might be onto something...an inexhaustible supply of energy.
Save gas...fart in a jar.
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|Goodie for me! I've saved all my fart jugs for two decades. I was going to donate them to the obama campaign, but he says he's full of it.
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|lol!
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|ROFL!
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|This is nothing, I invented a machine to turn eletricity into car exhaust.
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|*laughing*
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|HHO gas generation has been proven to increase efficiency in gas/diesel engines by up to 75%. There are all kinds of plans on building HHO generators. With a 12LPM generator you could run a 3500 Watt generator to power a small house..
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|now if they can do the same with the over flatulence perhaps we can solve the energy crisis...!
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|This whole site is cut and paste, it's a complete joke. The stories are always days old and all they want is the ad click throughs.
There's no real news here, these guys just go out and steal everyone else's stories word for word.
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|Michael, did they mention or did you look into the the possibly impacts of such a development, or must we wonder. It's not a far stretch to assume but you might call a bit more depth to your article or not just copy and paste.
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|Yoohoo ! Now I can leave my car engine running to juice my brand new AMD graphics card !
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