Pyroelectricity could extract energy from heat sources below 100°C
electronicsweekly.com
electronicsweekly.com
The best I can think of is that it is by the volume of the film, but I find that a weird way to express it, as it would seem to imply there’s little difference between a thin film over a large area and a thicker one over a smaller one.
But let’s go with that. Assuming a film thickness of 100nm (article says “50-100nm thick”) = 10^-7m = 10^-5cm, one would ⁿ eed an area of 10⁵ cm² = 10 m² to get that 526 Watt of power out. Still seems high. If that’s how to interpret that number, what kind of stuff do I need to cover with this film for that to happen?
"PMN–0.32PT thin films are shown to provide record-breaking pyroelectric energy con - version, including: first, the largest energy density of 1.06 J cm − 3 (at Δ T = 90 K, Δ E = 267 kV cm − 1 and f = 40 Hz; Fig. 4a), which is made possible because of the large field-induced value of π and the ability to apply large electric fields maximizing the electrical work ( ∮ ⋅ EP d ). Second, the largest power density of 526 Wcm − 3 (at Δ T = 56 K, Δ E = 267 kV cm − 1 and f = 1,000 Hz; Fig. 4b) that is real - ized because the power density scales directly with cycling fre - quency, which can be increased because the thermal time constant of the thin-film geometry is small."
Note the operational constraints. You have to apply a varying electic field and a varying temperature.
I wonder when someone will add pyroelectric film to something to make it more resistant to thermal shock?
I think this only applies if we're constraining the temperatures to typical summer outdoor/indoor cooling applications. Different technologies are going to have different temperature ranges at which they are most efficient, so for something like steam power generation multi-stage systems are common.
But imho the real market for these will be in low-power environments. Or defense: submarines have near-unlimited heatsink potential and lots of <100 heat sources.
Contrary to probably-locally-popular opinion, cars have been engineered to within an inch of their lives, and the quest for better fuel economy has been a huge focus of the industry for decades, pretty much countered only by "customer safety" and "what will the customers pay for". If there was an efficient way to recover the heat, it would probably already be getting used, as evidenced by all the other mechanisms already in a car if you look.
I'm sure zero percent of the market cared about pollution or high efficiency in the 90s and today it's a sizeable chunk (Im guessing but I'd bet a dollar it's at least a single digit %).
Today having something in that scavenge heat at some cost might be a plausible marketing argument.
Back to physics, so pipe are like wires for electrons, some energy will be wasted. But aren't turbo equipped engines using part of the flow to improve the engine fuel quality ? I should search if people try to expand on that. I know Turbos had some issues but I never read in details and this was long ago.
No, turbo is used to force more air into the intake side of the engine. It uses exhaust gas pressure to spin a turbine which is used to compress more air into the cylinder between cycles. That, combined with more fuel to maintain proper balance, gives you increased combustion, thus more power.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a28724/...
No number of drones that we can realistically produce and operate can adequately blanket the ocean. The Pacific ocean is bigger than all of the Earth's landmasses combined. Imagine trying to find a ship-sized vehicle moving through an area the size of Wyoming by plane, that's about how hard it is to find a whole carrier group just moving on the surface of the water, with publicly available information.
Without it, you're looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Wyoming.
Surface area of planet Earth: 500M km2.
Horizon radius at a height of mount everest: 300km.
Surface area visible: 282K km2.
Number of drones needed to cover the area: 1773.
Multiply it by 5 to 10 to be sure.
Incredibly realistic.
Is it, really? I've thought the only reason we can do drone strikes in Syria is exactly because it's really hard to hide if you're always being tracked.
And my first thought was like your's, but I came to think that between subullites, refined SIGINT analysis for surfaced subs, and the few locations on earth we know manufacture these things I think it's going to be more possible to follow submarines than you're making it out to be.
Humans have to disembark these things, at least if we want humans on them. Even in a future where all subs are autonomous they'll still need to be manufactured somewhere and will still require supply (re)provisioning.
But I'm open to changing my mind on this if you have a special insight.
Energy per volume?
That would make sense for, say, battery storage but can anyone explain how it describes an energy conversion process?