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Thanks Ion!
Yes, the state of affairs, but not the state of TEG research, which is mostly devoted to solid-state physics.
The conventional TEG world is aiming at something like 8% efficiency. And yet, when people were trying to come up with commercial TEGs made with metal in the 20s through 70s, they were often getting efficiencies in the 20% range, mostly by the use of geometries as per Imelmann and Winckler.
This was quite literally forgotten, in the furor over the development of BiTe materials. All the work with increasing efficiency with metal stopped overnight, and the 'prior art' seemed to disappear.
Even the 20% range would be a game changer in terms of waste heat utilization. For instance, there is an expected 2020 market of 64 M. in global thermoelectric generators for car waste heat. They could for the most part be made from the thermo metals--without ceramics-- and with 'thermal gaps' of various kinds. These TEGs would be cheap to build, compared to the BiTe type.
The Dahlberg patent is highly significant. I strongly promote testing it because if it works out, it is a game changer for global energy and climate. The idea doesn't controvert conventional physics in any way, and uses off the shelf components, without changing anything but the converter. And it can be done with metal or ceramic elements.
If it works, it even seems to relieve us of the need to make upconverters for such low input voltages, since it adds the output on a much higher, AC, voltage. But... with the switching of thermo elements, you'd need some good low on resistance switches and diodes anyway, especially for tests with just a few TEG modules.
(Dahlberg has been uploaded in the Aspden-Strachan thread for those who want to look at it.)
Fred
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Topic: Henry L Imelmann - Method and apparatus for converting heat directly to electric (Read 8961 times)
