Turning waste heat from exhaust into electricity
— Photo: Mohammed Yousuf
Heat harvested: Nearly 60 per cent of the energy produced by a gasoline engine is lost as waste heat.
Researchers have invented a new material that will make cars even more efficient, by converting heat wasted through engine exhaust into electricity.
The same technology could work in power generators and heat pumps, said project leader Joseph Heremans, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology at Ohio State University.
Scientists call such materials as thermoelectric, and they rate the materials’ efficiency based on how much heat they can convert into electricity at a given temperature. The paper was published in Science.
Previously, the most efficient material used commercially in thermoelectric power generators was an alloy called sodium-doped lead telluride, which had a rating of 0.71. The new material, thallium-doped lead telluride, has a rating of 1.5.
What’s more important, according to a Press release by the Ohio State University, is that the new material is most effective between 450 and 950 degrees Fahrenheit — a typical temperature range for power systems such as automobile engines.
Some experts argue that only about 25 percent of the energy produced by a typical gasoline engine is used to move a car or power its accessories, and nearly 60 percent is lost through waste heat — much of which escapes in engine exhaust.
A thermoelectric (TE) device can capture some of that waste heat, Heremans said. “The material does all the work.
“It produces electrical power just like conventional heat engines — steam engines, gas or diesel engines — that are coupled to electrical generators.
But it uses electrons as the working fluids instead of water or gases, and makes electricity directly.” — Our Bureau
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