>Thermoelectric devices, or thermoelectric generators, are a series of energy-generating materials that can convert heat into electricity so long as there is a temperature gradient—where one side of the device is hot and the other side is cool. Such devices have been a significant focus of research and development for their potential utility in harvesting waste heat from other energy-generating methods
>The key was to find compounds that work well as charge transfer interfaces, meaning that they can easily transfer electrons between each other. After testing various materials, the team found two viable compounds: copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and copper hexadecafluoro phthalocyanine (F16CuPc).
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>The optimized device had an open-circuit voltage of 384 mV, a short-circuit current density of 1.1 μA/cm2, and a maximum output of 94 nW/cm2. Moreover, all these results were achieved at room temperature without the use of a temperature gradient.
Paper: [Organic thermoelectric device utilizing charge transfer interface as the charge generation by harvesting thermal energy | Nature Communications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52047-5)
233C on
So a Carnot demon then?
In an isolated system at thermal equilibrium they can extract energy from the temperature itself?
greenmachine11235 on
What the title describes is fundamentally impossible. It’d amount to creation of energy from nothing in violation of various fundamental laws of physics.Â
Besides getting an F in thermodynamics. I am thinking they’ve created an overly complicated battery, have insufficiently sensitive equipment and are getting phantom readings, or in the most generous possibility there is a gradient at play and they either failed to measure it or elected to publish a misleading title.Â
habeus_coitus on
This would be like claiming a balloon can fly around a room if the air pressure in that room is equivalent to the pressure inside an inflated balloon. Just because there’s a lot of energy in a system doesn’t mean anything if that energy has already achieved the maximum entropy.
Clawdius_Talonious on
Now use it to drive Peltier effect devices, and use the temperature gradient to generate energy too, and create a perpetual energy generation loop.
I mean, if this is a thing, that should be pretty easily attainable with it. I’m a firm believer in Toothpastefordinner’s fifth law of Thermodynamics. Thermodynamics sucks.
timmeh87 on
Hell yeah, 1 microamp per square cm! *plugs in electric car*
EntangledReality on
This reminds of the cold fusion ” breakthrough” in the late 1980’s.
HammerTh_1701 on
Yeah, no. That can’t work.
Pixelated_ on
>A new planet-wide electric field that is as fundamental to earth as its gravitational and magnetic fields had been discovered in a major scientific breakthrough.
Hmm. Interesting how this is just now being developed when conceptually it’s been around since the 1950’s.
jamcultur on
If it actually could extract energy from ambient temperature, it would cool down the room it’s in until the room reaches absolute zero.
YahenP on
Maxwell’s Demon exists! I knew it. I knew they were hiding it from us the whole time!
QuesaritoOutOfBed on
If you used an appropriate solution of positively and negatively charged particles, you could maybe, maybe harness the power of natural convection to generate an impossibly tiny amount of electricity.
espressocycle on
I think they lost a bit in translation but this sounds like they are developing something akin to a potato battery rather than a generator. Quite useful to have something not radioactive.
Arqium on
Maybe alien technology reversed.
Ytumith on
Right which means we can finally stop heating water to send it through turbines
TyrrelCorp888 on
Make a commercial product or it didn’t happen
West-Aspect3145 on
So they discovered zero-point energy? If so this would be either covered everywhere by the media or bought out and buried such that we’d never hear about it.
19 Comments
>Thermoelectric devices, or thermoelectric generators, are a series of energy-generating materials that can convert heat into electricity so long as there is a temperature gradient—where one side of the device is hot and the other side is cool. Such devices have been a significant focus of research and development for their potential utility in harvesting waste heat from other energy-generating methods
>The key was to find compounds that work well as charge transfer interfaces, meaning that they can easily transfer electrons between each other. After testing various materials, the team found two viable compounds: copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and copper hexadecafluoro phthalocyanine (F16CuPc).
>
>
>The optimized device had an open-circuit voltage of 384 mV, a short-circuit current density of 1.1 μA/cm2, and a maximum output of 94 nW/cm2. Moreover, all these results were achieved at room temperature without the use of a temperature gradient.
Paper: [Organic thermoelectric device utilizing charge transfer interface as the charge generation by harvesting thermal energy | Nature Communications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52047-5)
So a Carnot demon then?
In an isolated system at thermal equilibrium they can extract energy from the temperature itself?
What the title describes is fundamentally impossible. It’d amount to creation of energy from nothing in violation of various fundamental laws of physics.Â
Besides getting an F in thermodynamics. I am thinking they’ve created an overly complicated battery, have insufficiently sensitive equipment and are getting phantom readings, or in the most generous possibility there is a gradient at play and they either failed to measure it or elected to publish a misleading title.Â
This would be like claiming a balloon can fly around a room if the air pressure in that room is equivalent to the pressure inside an inflated balloon. Just because there’s a lot of energy in a system doesn’t mean anything if that energy has already achieved the maximum entropy.
Now use it to drive Peltier effect devices, and use the temperature gradient to generate energy too, and create a perpetual energy generation loop.
I mean, if this is a thing, that should be pretty easily attainable with it. I’m a firm believer in Toothpastefordinner’s fifth law of Thermodynamics. Thermodynamics sucks.
Hell yeah, 1 microamp per square cm! *plugs in electric car*
This reminds of the cold fusion ” breakthrough” in the late 1980’s.
Yeah, no. That can’t work.
>A new planet-wide electric field that is as fundamental to earth as its gravitational and magnetic fields had been discovered in a major scientific breakthrough.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasa-discovers-long-sought-global-electric-field-on-earth/
Big thermodynamics hates this one weird trick!
Hmm. Interesting how this is just now being developed when conceptually it’s been around since the 1950’s.
If it actually could extract energy from ambient temperature, it would cool down the room it’s in until the room reaches absolute zero.
Maxwell’s Demon exists! I knew it. I knew they were hiding it from us the whole time!
If you used an appropriate solution of positively and negatively charged particles, you could maybe, maybe harness the power of natural convection to generate an impossibly tiny amount of electricity.
I think they lost a bit in translation but this sounds like they are developing something akin to a potato battery rather than a generator. Quite useful to have something not radioactive.
Maybe alien technology reversed.
Right which means we can finally stop heating water to send it through turbines
Make a commercial product or it didn’t happen
So they discovered zero-point energy? If so this would be either covered everywhere by the media or bought out and buried such that we’d never hear about it.