electrical energy using Seebeck Effect at room temperature

Syrdec is swinging for the fences when it comes to alternative energy.
The Princeton, N.J.-based company is working on a material that, when
combined with
another substance, will generate electricity with ambient room heat, Andrew
Surany,
the company's president, told CNET News.com this week.
Conceivably, one could take that material and fashion it into a passive fuel
cell
that can create power by just sitting in an ordinary room heated to about 72
degrees
Fahrenheit, leading to self-charging electronic devices.
"It derives heat from the environment" and converts it to electricity,
Surany said.
"I'm talking about embedding cells into doors or the panels on a car. In a
laptop,
I am talking about embedding cells into the case."
And no, it won't suck out all the heat like some freakish invention from Mr.
Freeze
on the old
Batman
show. As long as the sun doesn't explode or Earth doesn't get plunged into
nuclear
winter, it conceivably could produce electricity without effort
indefinitely.
Theoretically, one could heat the material, too, to get better results. If
you heated
one square meter of the material to 100 degrees Celsius, or the boiling
point of
water, the material could absorb 1.2 kilojoules of heat energy. Converting 5
percent
of that heat to electricity would give you enough energy to power a car,
Surany asserted.
So how does it work? Syrdec is trying to combine something called the
Seebeck effect
and the product of nuclear fusion. In the Seebeck effect, electric current
can be
generated from temperature differentials. Put metals or semiconductors near
each
other that exist in radically different energy states and you get power.
It's not
just theoretical:
Germany
's EnOcean, another energy-harvesting specialist, has come up with sensors
that get
power from the temperature differentials between the interaction material
that makes
up a pipe filled with hot gases and a material heated to room temperature.
Now the nuclear fusion part: Syrdec says it understands a way to
artificially alter
the natural energy state of a particular undisclosed material. Instead of
being in
a "normal" energy state at room temperature, the altered material is in a
normal
energy state at, hypothetically, minus 40 degrees Celsius or colder. Thus,
when this
material is put into a room-temperature environment, it's excited. Put that
next
to a material with a much higher natural energy state and you get the
Seebeck effect.
"We are looking to create an artificial energy state inside the molecular
structure
of the substrate," Surany explained. "The materials are unique and
specialized. They
were brought to our attention through nuclear fusion research."
Outlandish as it sounds, the CEA, the atomic energy agency of France, has
already
concocted a microgenerator
that can produce electricity at ambient temperatures via the Seebeck
effect. The
thermoelectric generator in CEA's prototypes has an output of 4 milliwatts
per centimeter
square for every (Celsius) degree difference between the two materials. The
India
Institute of Science also has examined ways of
generating power
via the Seebeck effect with changes in pressure.
Syrdec's fuel cell doesn't exist yet, but theoretically it's possible,
Surany said.
(The material altered by nuclear fusion, by the way, isn't radioactive.)
Even if
one can be made, there are other complications. How small could such a fuel
cell
be? How does it do with recharging?
Although the fuel cells would ultimately produce electricity by just sitting
around,
producing the materials for the fuel cells takes a lot of power.
"Manufacturing is
energy-intensive," Surany said.


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