Phil’s Dad - 07 September 2009 02:13 AM

In my instinctive desire to please all the people all the time I have been thinking about how to deal with the “waste” heat in a way that would satisfy both Brian H and Aeronaut.

Then I remembered that University of Utah physicist Orest Symko demonstrated a couple of years ago how to convert heat via sound into electricity. Symko foresaw using the devices to generate electricity from heat that is currently released from nuclear power plant cooling towers.

It’s only an example of the principle; which is to convert the heat directly into electricity rather than resorting to a steam engine. Can’t hurt the energy I/O balance. What other methods are out there to convert heat into electricity in one or two inexpensive steps?

OK, quoting this here, then I’ll split it to a new thread about sound and heat.

I was just watching a documentary last month, and there is this fellow who has developed a sound based refrigerator.  But it makes no noise.  Fascinating.  He’s got a working prototype. 

Have you heard of this?

Here is an old article about it - Science Daily

The way I see it, he is using a resonant chamber to create order out of chaos - this takes energy which is taken from the heat of the gas, cooling it.  I’m not sure how efficient it could be though.  The efficiency is governed by the difference in initial and final temperature.  If the gas cools too far it will no longer be enough to excite the resonance and so stop cooling.

It is similar in a way to cooling by lasers.  In ultra cold experiments they use lasers to set up a standing EM-wave. Atoms are then trapped in the troughs of the wave and can’t get out - restricting their movement and therfore cooling them.