Thermophotovoltaic converts heat to electricity with over 40% efficiency

Excerpt:

Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. It converts heat to electricity with over 40% efficiency—making it more efficient than steam turbines, the industrial standard.

The invention is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source. It can generate electricity from sources that reach 1,900 to 2,400 °C—too hot for turbines, with their moving parts.