University of Minnesota engineering researchers discover new source for generating 'green' electri…

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2011/UR_CONTENT_343439.html

News Release

University of Minnesota engineering researchers discover new source for generating 'green' electricity

Contacts: Rhonda Zurn, College of Science and Engineering, [email protected], [phone]
Preston Smith, University News Service, [email protected], [phone]

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/21/2011) —University of Minnesota engineering researchers in the College of Science and Engineering have recently discovered a new alloy material that converts heat directly into electricity. This revolutionary energy conversion method is in the early stages of development, but it could have wide-sweeping impact on creating environmentally friendly electricity from waste heat sources.

Researchers say the material could potentially be used to capture waste heat from a car’s exhaust that would heat the material and produce electricity for charging the battery in a hybrid car. Other possible future uses include capturing rejected heat from industrial and power plants or temperature differences in the ocean to create electricity. The research team is looking into possible commercialization of the technology.

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Watch a short research video of the new material suddenly become magnetic when heated: http://z.umn.edu/conversionvideo.

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For more detail on the research, read the entire paper published in Advanced Energy Materials at http://z.umn.edu/energyalloy.

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[kestrel91316]

1. I found myself wondering, years ago, if something could be done

to utilize the effect (I forget what it's called) of applying heat to a junction between two metals (I forget which two) which then generates electricity. I even thought a fresnel lens could focus that heat on the junction to boost the effect. Solar electricity without the high tech cells.

These sort of mental ruminations going nowhere is why I am NOT an engineer, lol.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Seebeck effect. Yes, it's been studied for practical applications, but ...

efficiency has been the main drawback. Somewhat exotic materials are also involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

[Javaman]

3. So how rare are the materials for this "new" alloy?

how much will it cost?

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Materials in the alloy

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.201000048/full

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We demonstrate a new method for the direct conversion of heat to electricity using the recently discovered multiferroic alloy, Ni₄₅Co₅Mn₄₀Sn₁₀http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/applab/v97/i1/p014101_s1">1. This alloy undergoes a low hysteresis, reversible martensitic phase transformation from a nonmagnetic martensite phase to a strongly ferromagnetic austenite phase upon heating. When biased by a suitably placed permanent magnet, heating through the phase transformation causes a sudden increase of the magnetic moment to a large value. As a consequence of Faraday’s law of induction, this drives a current in a surrounding circuit. Theory predicts that under optimal conditions the performance compares favorably with the best thermoelectrics. Because of the low hysteresis of the alloy, a promising area of application of this concept appears to be energy conversion at small ΔT, suggesting a possible route to the conversion of the vast amounts of energy stored on earth at small temperature difference. We postulate other new methods for the direct conversion of heat to electricity suggested by the underlying theory.

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Ni - Nickle
Co - Cobalt
Mn - Manganese
Sn - Tin

[Javaman]

5. Okay, now that is interesting. Thanks! :) nt