MultiFerroic conversion of heat to electricity

[Brian H]

Flipping a “metamaterial” between phases induces current:

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

Much more effective than thermocouples, it seems.

[KeithPickering]

Brian H wrote: Flipping a “metamaterial” between phases induces current:

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

Much more effective than thermocouples, it seems.

From my reading, not so much. You need to alternately heat/cool the ferroic material to make it work, it seems. That takes a while, so although current and voltage look OK on an instantaneous basis, the actual power obtained is low.

There has been better & more interesting progress recently on more “standard” thermoelectric materials, including organics.

[vansig]

KeithPickering wrote:
From my reading, not so much. You need to alternately heat/cool the ferroic material to make it work, it seems. That takes a while, so although current and voltage look OK on an instantaneous basis, the actual power obtained is low.

but the temperature difference at the transition is small.

[KeithPickering]

vansig wrote:

From my reading, not so much. You need to alternately heat/cool the ferroic material to make it work, it seems. That takes a while, so although current and voltage look OK on an instantaneous basis, the actual power obtained is low.

but the temperature difference at the transition is small.

True, but a standard thermoelectric can be operated solid-state, with one hot side and one cold side, extracting electricity from the movement of the heat itself. The ferroic material can’t do that. You have to move the material from hot to cold and back again, repeatedly. It’s the phase transition in the material itself that causes the current. It’s hard to imagine a device that can actually do that efficiently.

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