New technology turns heat into electricity for cars, saves fuel
- August 15th, 2008
- 8 Comments
Tokyo-based Tech and machinery company Furukawa developed a thermoelectric conversion material that can supposedly boost the fuel efficiency of automobiles. Power is generated in the material through differences in temperature between its two sides.
Conventional thermoelectric conversion material warms up as a whole, when one side is exposed to heat. This method is said to be rather inefficient and proves to be too impractical to use in many potential applications.
Furukawa’s skutterudite-based material consists of antimony, gallium, indium, titanium and other substances. The company claims that with their invention heat is kept in one place and doesn’t spread to other sections.
Furukawa uses the material in a small module (50×50x8mm, 140g), which generates up to 33W when the top side is heated up to a temperature of 720 C and the bottom side maintains a temperature of 50 C. The company hopes to be able to attach their modules between the engines and mufflers in automobiles to partly convert exhaust heat into electricity.
Furukawa claims that attaching 20 modules to a car’s exhaust system in average results in the conversion of about 7% of exhaust heat into electricity, reducing fuel consumption by 2%. The company plans to further improve their system in order to be ready for mass production by 2011.
Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]
Ankit (Who am I?)
3 months ago
It’s called a peltier unit, and inefficiencies and costs involved with using the power (battery), the increased weight from the devices, labor cost to install, etc. will make it not worth it.
If they really want to improve gas mileage, there are better alternatives on what they can do.
Ankit (Who am I?)
3 months ago
I forgot to include - even if you can capture this energy, what will people do unless they have an electric motor?
As long as I’m understanding what they’ve said correctly, I don’t see this being adopted by people.
TheHoldSteady (Who am I?)
3 months ago
I’m pretty sure they stole this idea from the McDLT.
Ankit Gupta (Who am I?)
3 months ago
If this company or any other company is reading, this might be beneficial for you:
Your goal: Save fuel
How to accomplish: Take differences in heat and generate electricity
Notice, I didn’t say exhaust anywhere yet. Now, your goal is to find a difference in heat and use that to generate electricity, and in this case, it’s for a car.
Why did you pick the exhaust? What part of the car do we have to actively cool? The engine? Why not try to start there?
What does the radiator do? It uses a liquid to cool the engine and lowers the temperature by having air blow over the radiator.
If you ask me, the real innovation for this specific technology might be better near the front of the car, not necessarily the exhaust.
Just as a side note, the exhaust in itself could generate power from more things than just differences in heat. The air is moving, just like water in a stream, what if you had something it rotated and generated power?
Overall - without offending anyone, my thought is that you should take a higher level approach. I’ve thought about this a few times and it basically comes down to making sense or not, because things like the cost of a battery, inability to use the electricity on board, etc. get in the way of it being usable.
FBuzin (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Ankit Gupta said: “the exhaust in itself could generate power from more things than just differences in heat. The air is moving, just like water in a stream, what if you had something it rotated and generated power”
What a “turbocharged” idea there. :-)
FBuzin (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Ankit Gupta said: “the exhaust in itself could generate power from more things than just differences in heat. The air is moving, just like water in a stream, what if you had something it rotated and generated power”
What a “turbocharged” idea there. :-)
Chuck (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Internal combustion engines (ICE)are about 30% efficent. 60% of the fuel energy is wasted in heating the engine and what goes out the exhaust. It’s nice that they are trying to recover some of that energy, but the real solution is to dump the ICE altogether. Electric’s probably more like 60 to 80% eff.
Serkan Toto (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Thanks for your insightful comments.
More information can now be found here:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080821/156657/
(free, in English)
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