I like the idea of having the heat itself power the cooling technology. The heat is punished into eliminating itself for its existence. Making 20% electricity out of 100% heat, would that mean that the heat would cool down to 80%? Or is it cooling down to like 50% but all that they could make into electricity was 20%? That in itself makes for pretty good cooling.
I like the idea of having the heat itself power the cooling technology. The heat is punished into eliminating itself for its existence. Making 20% electricity out of 100% heat, would that mean that the heat would cool down to 80%? Or is it cooling down to like 50% but all that they could make into electricity was 20%? That in itself makes for pretty good cooling.
I think it's a bit more complex than that. It generates electricity. That could be pumped into the fans. But, I don't see a direct relationship.
As I remember my physics, heat - the random motion of molecules - is the highest entropy state possible and that without a high temperature gradient to cause heat to flow, no useful work can be obtained.
This is true. That's why you usually have to interpose a vacuum between the hot metal giving off the electrons and the cold one that's receiving. Without the vacuum, you'd transfer heat and lose your gradient. This new company is saying you can maintain the gradient by interposing silicon, without blocking the flow of electrons.
You are misunderstanding, because you are thinking of a fixed source of heat, and a small, finiite dump. The heat in a laptop is constantly being replenished, and removed. Between the replenishing, and removal, would be a method that helps to recover that heat, turn it back into electricity, and either use it immediately to help run the machine, or push it back into the battery to recharge, like plugging the machine into the wall while using it.
These methods are widely used in industry, just not with direct conversion.
aha... I thought about it some more and get it now. Science is so cool!
This is true. That's why you usually have to interpose a vacuum between the hot metal giving off the electrons and the cold one that's receiving. Without the vacuum, you'd transfer heat and lose your gradient. This new company is saying you can maintain the gradient by interposing silicon, without blocking the flow of electrons.
Is a "a properly selected semiconductor thermoelectric" necessarily "silicon" or do you have additional information.
Okay, not sound like a pompous ass, but I have a physics degree, thus here's my take, simplified as much as possible:
The battery is a continual power supply (for the duration of the battery's life), thus the heat output is always basically "100%" or close enough to it . This heat is emitted through (mainly) the processor and partially the RAM and maybe other moving parts, i.e. HD, Optical media drive, whatever. (These objects are called "heat baths" in the physics world.)
As many others have aptly pointed out, the only way to produce work from heat is if you have some sort of temperature differential. Luckily enough, computers are built just this way. They have fans which blow over the heat sinks to propell heat from the system. Theoretically, the fins of the heat sinks are kept at a constant, cooler temperature than the heat baths. Thus we have a constant heat differential in the system.
The only way I see this chip working, however, is if it had two reference points, one directly on the heat bath, and one directly on the heat sink. Refer to the crappy diagram below:
However, they said the chip was small, so I'm perplexed... unless the ship has a miniature heat sink poking out of the top of it... in which case, of course it's going to be less efficient because it's not taking advantage of the entire heat gradient at hand.
Also, since the ship is small, they should theoretically just be able to create a large matrix of them and suck out more energy. Of course that would require weight and space, which they are trying to reduce, but it would work. Picture it: if you had a processor surrounded by a field of these things, the first ones would pick up a*100% (where "a" is the available heat energy) and re-emit a*80%, the next ring would pick up a*80% and re-emit a*64%, then a*51.2%, then a*40.96%, etc. etc. As N -> infinity, the system would attain zero entropy... however, that's not very space efficient ;-)
Of course, then, you have to work out the expenditure of energy in the units' production, and then we get into a discussion of "Energy Balance" which will end up being positive anyway. As has been noted time and time again, entropy cannot be stopped... only slowed down, which is what this device would do.
Hell I am not even out of high school and yet I even know that you can't replace batteries with this!
If it only is 20-30% efficient, where the hell does the 70-80% come from? Plus not all of the electronics in a computer make a large amount of heat, but still use quite a bit of power like the screen.
Longer battery life, yes. End of batteries, no.
Well I think I read on Ars that they are thinking of burning ehtanol (or methanol) and use the created heat to make the electricity necessary to run your computer. So you recharge by just refilling your ethanol tank. But I have no idea what the do with the 80% excess heat during this process. You could use the exhaust as a cigaret lighter! But who dares smoking in these times?
While we are being pompous asses, I not only have a degree in physics, I teach thermodynamics. The maximum thermal efficiency of a system is the Carnot efficiency:
eff = (Th-Tc)/Th
where Th is the Kelvin temperature of the heat source and Tc is the Kelvin temperature of the cold reservoir, which would be the fins of a heat sink or some such thing. The only way that this system can have any effect is to use a Seebeck Effect device to replace the computer's fans. You cannot refrigerate the heat sink because the same electricity is used for refrigeration is used to create the heat in the first place.
The only way that this system can have any effect is to use a Seebeck Effect device to replace the computer's fans.
It doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with me. I basically said that you could prevent excess heat from escaping the system by having an infinite array of these things... meaning that they would act as a cooling device. No, not a cooling device, since they aren't really cooling anything. Just insulating against heat loss.
It's akin to having a pressurized balloon and poking a tiny pinhole in it as opposed to a pencil sized hole. The device just contains power better, not generate it out of nothing.
And if the processor was just turning electricity directly into heat, it would be a perpetual energy machine, given an infinite array.
Apple can NOT be happy about this story. When startups show their technologies to companies like APPLE, they often sign NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) to protect the privacy of these discussions.
This start up is simply using Apple and Dell's names to get a boost (most likely looking for 2nd round investment) I'm sure they have received a direct comment from Apple, as not to use their name anymore (or NEVER do business with Apple)
That said, the technology (if it works) sounds great. Would really change how people think about cooling. That said, why aren't they quoting Intel? If their chip has to be added a processor, they would have to work VEYR closely with Intel, AMD to integrate. perhaps, they're hoping Intel will just buy them out.
Hope they make a few million. (and they can spend it on a better website. http://www.eneco.com/)
Forgive me if this isn't precisely on topic, but would this technology be more useful in Hybrid Cars?
I mean, combustion engines create heat, couldn't some of that heat be recycled to batteries?
Just a thought.
That was my first thought, too. Why not just put a whole sheet of those things on the inside of the hood? Then we'd be talking Electri-City. *har har har*
This article makes me think of a potential breakthrough for miniture stirling engines....just a thought
That's one of the most famous heat engines. It's also a favorite of machine model makers. Small working models are made all the time. There are some uses for it as well.
Okay, not sound like a pompous ass, but I have a physics degree, thus here's my take, simplified as much as possible:
The battery is a continual power supply (for the duration of the battery's life), thus the heat output is always basically "100%" or close enough to it . This heat is emitted through (mainly) the processor and partially the RAM and maybe other moving parts, i.e. HD, Optical media drive, whatever. (These objects are called "heat baths" in the physics world.)
As many others have aptly pointed out, the only way to produce work from heat is if you have some sort of temperature differential. Luckily enough, computers are built just this way. They have fans which blow over the heat sinks to propell heat from the system. Theoretically, the fins of the heat sinks are kept at a constant, cooler temperature than the heat baths. Thus we have a constant heat differential in the system.
The only way I see this chip working, however, is if it had two reference points, one directly on the heat bath, and one directly on the heat sink. Refer to the crappy diagram below:
However, they said the chip was small, so I'm perplexed... unless the ship has a miniature heat sink poking out of the top of it... in which case, of course it's going to be less efficient because it's not taking advantage of the entire heat gradient at hand.
Also, since the ship is small, they should theoretically just be able to create a large matrix of them and suck out more energy. Of course that would require weight and space, which they are trying to reduce, but it would work. Picture it: if you had a processor surrounded by a field of these things, the first ones would pick up a*100% (where "a" is the available heat energy) and re-emit a*80%, the next ring would pick up a*80% and re-emit a*64%, then a*51.2%, then a*40.96%, etc. etc. As N -> infinity, the system would attain zero entropy... however, that's not very space efficient ;-)
Of course, then, you have to work out the expenditure of energy in the units' production, and then we get into a discussion of "Energy Balance" which will end up being positive anyway. As has been noted time and time again, entropy cannot be stopped... only slowed down, which is what this device would do.
-Clive
One good way to do this, and likely the most efficient, would be to manufacture the cpu, and other chips with this, as part of the chip itself. That way, it would have a high degree of thermal coupling. The residual (non recoverable) heat could be then removed by a heatsink bonded directly to the chip?sans case. One factory manufactured unit!
This way, the chip could be the same size as the cpu die. The question is just how efficient can this actually be? What I've seen of it so far, is that is has a way to go before an actual production quality product rolls out.
It doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with me. I basically said that you could prevent excess heat from escaping the system by having an infinite array of these things... meaning that they would act as a cooling device. No, not a cooling device, since they aren't really cooling anything. Just insulating against heat loss.
...
-Clive
No, I am not disagreeing with you--at least. This device is supposed to convert heat that would have been vented to the air into electricity. This necessarily makes it a cooling device. It would maintain the computer's processor at a high constant temperature. If it were to lower the temperature of the processor, the device's conversion efficiency efficiency. Assuming that the processor is kept hot enough to boil water (Th=373 K/100 °C) and the cold temperature is about room temperature (Tc=300 K/27 °C), the maximum thermal efficiency of the device would be slightly less than 20%. Real conversion efficiency as high as 15% would be a major breakthrough.
Consider this: Intel has made remarkable progress is reducing the heat produced by its processors and thus their cooling requirements. This technique recovers lost heat by not losing it in the first place. 100% of Intel's recovered heat goes to a useful purpose. The best that Eneco can hope for is about 15%. You do the math.
Comments
I like the idea of having the heat itself power the cooling technology. The heat is punished into eliminating itself for its existence. Making 20% electricity out of 100% heat, would that mean that the heat would cool down to 80%? Or is it cooling down to like 50% but all that they could make into electricity was 20%? That in itself makes for pretty good cooling.
I think it's a bit more complex than that. It generates electricity. That could be pumped into the fans. But, I don't see a direct relationship.
As I remember my physics, heat - the random motion of molecules - is the highest entropy state possible and that without a high temperature gradient to cause heat to flow, no useful work can be obtained.
This is true. That's why you usually have to interpose a vacuum between the hot metal giving off the electrons and the cold one that's receiving. Without the vacuum, you'd transfer heat and lose your gradient. This new company is saying you can maintain the gradient by interposing silicon, without blocking the flow of electrons.
You are misunderstanding, because you are thinking of a fixed source of heat, and a small, finiite dump. The heat in a laptop is constantly being replenished, and removed. Between the replenishing, and removal, would be a method that helps to recover that heat, turn it back into electricity, and either use it immediately to help run the machine, or push it back into the battery to recharge, like plugging the machine into the wall while using it.
These methods are widely used in industry, just not with direct conversion.
aha... I thought about it some more and get it now. Science is so cool!
This is true. That's why you usually have to interpose a vacuum between the hot metal giving off the electrons and the cold one that's receiving. Without the vacuum, you'd transfer heat and lose your gradient. This new company is saying you can maintain the gradient by interposing silicon, without blocking the flow of electrons.
Is a "a properly selected semiconductor thermoelectric" necessarily "silicon" or do you have additional information.
The battery is a continual power supply (for the duration of the battery's life), thus the heat output is always basically "100%" or close enough to it . This heat is emitted through (mainly) the processor and partially the RAM and maybe other moving parts, i.e. HD, Optical media drive, whatever. (These objects are called "heat baths" in the physics world.)
As many others have aptly pointed out, the only way to produce work from heat is if you have some sort of temperature differential. Luckily enough, computers are built just this way. They have fans which blow over the heat sinks to propell heat from the system. Theoretically, the fins of the heat sinks are kept at a constant, cooler temperature than the heat baths. Thus we have a constant heat differential in the system.
The only way I see this chip working, however, is if it had two reference points, one directly on the heat bath, and one directly on the heat sink. Refer to the crappy diagram below:
---------INSULATION -----------------------------------------INSULATION----------
---------------------------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------
HEAT BATH--------------------differential zone-----------------------HEAT SINK
---------------------------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------
---------INSULATION -----------------------------------------INSULATION----------
However, they said the chip was small, so I'm perplexed... unless the ship has a miniature heat sink poking out of the top of it... in which case, of course it's going to be less efficient because it's not taking advantage of the entire heat gradient at hand.
Also, since the ship is small, they should theoretically just be able to create a large matrix of them and suck out more energy. Of course that would require weight and space, which they are trying to reduce, but it would work. Picture it: if you had a processor surrounded by a field of these things, the first ones would pick up a*100% (where "a" is the available heat energy) and re-emit a*80%, the next ring would pick up a*80% and re-emit a*64%, then a*51.2%, then a*40.96%, etc. etc. As N -> infinity, the system would attain zero entropy... however, that's not very space efficient ;-)
Of course, then, you have to work out the expenditure of energy in the units' production, and then we get into a discussion of "Energy Balance" which will end up being positive anyway. As has been noted time and time again, entropy cannot be stopped... only slowed down, which is what this device would do.
-Clive
Hell I am not even out of high school and yet I even know that you can't replace batteries with this!
If it only is 20-30% efficient, where the hell does the 70-80% come from? Plus not all of the electronics in a computer make a large amount of heat, but still use quite a bit of power like the screen.
Longer battery life, yes. End of batteries, no.
Well I think I read on Ars that they are thinking of burning ehtanol (or methanol) and use the created heat to make the electricity necessary to run your computer. So you recharge by just refilling your ethanol tank. But I have no idea what the do with the 80% excess heat during this process. You could use the exhaust as a cigaret lighter! But who dares smoking in these times?
eff = (Th-Tc)/Th
where Th is the Kelvin temperature of the heat source and Tc is the Kelvin temperature of the cold reservoir, which would be the fins of a heat sink or some such thing. The only way that this system can have any effect is to use a Seebeck Effect device to replace the computer's fans. You cannot refrigerate the heat sink because the same electricity is used for refrigeration is used to create the heat in the first place.
While we are being pompous asses...
Love it. Any chance of a new smiley that looks like a donkey we could use?
BTW, this is a very informative discussion (not that I have anything useful to add here...
The only way that this system can have any effect is to use a Seebeck Effect device to replace the computer's fans.
It doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with me. I basically said that you could prevent excess heat from escaping the system by having an infinite array of these things... meaning that they would act as a cooling device. No, not a cooling device, since they aren't really cooling anything. Just insulating against heat loss.
It's akin to having a pressurized balloon and poking a tiny pinhole in it as opposed to a pencil sized hole. The device just contains power better, not generate it out of nothing.
And if the processor was just turning electricity directly into heat, it would be a perpetual energy machine, given an infinite array.
-Clive
This start up is simply using Apple and Dell's names to get a boost (most likely looking for 2nd round investment) I'm sure they have received a direct comment from Apple, as not to use their name anymore (or NEVER do business with Apple)
That said, the technology (if it works) sounds great. Would really change how people think about cooling. That said, why aren't they quoting Intel? If their chip has to be added a processor, they would have to work VEYR closely with Intel, AMD to integrate. perhaps, they're hoping Intel will just buy them out.
Hope they make a few million. (and they can spend it on a better website. http://www.eneco.com/)
I mean, combustion engines create heat, couldn't some of that heat be recycled to batteries?
Just a thought.
Forgive me if this isn't precisely on topic, but would this technology be more useful in Hybrid Cars?
I mean, combustion engines create heat, couldn't some of that heat be recycled to batteries?
Just a thought.
That was my first thought, too. Why not just put a whole sheet of those things on the inside of the hood? Then we'd be talking Electri-City. *har har har*
Yes, I laugh at my own jokes.
-Clive
This article makes me think of a potential breakthrough for miniture stirling engines....just a thought
That's one of the most famous heat engines. It's also a favorite of machine model makers. Small working models are made all the time. There are some uses for it as well.
Well, there aren't many semiconductors out there which aren't based on silicon. Using doped diamonds isn't exactly cost effective.
GaSp is used, as is Germanium, which is making a big comeback.
Diamond is actually being used on chips. Usually as a thin evaporated, or sputtered, transition layer.
Okay, not sound like a pompous ass, but I have a physics degree, thus here's my take, simplified as much as possible:
The battery is a continual power supply (for the duration of the battery's life), thus the heat output is always basically "100%" or close enough to it . This heat is emitted through (mainly) the processor and partially the RAM and maybe other moving parts, i.e. HD, Optical media drive, whatever. (These objects are called "heat baths" in the physics world.)
As many others have aptly pointed out, the only way to produce work from heat is if you have some sort of temperature differential. Luckily enough, computers are built just this way. They have fans which blow over the heat sinks to propell heat from the system. Theoretically, the fins of the heat sinks are kept at a constant, cooler temperature than the heat baths. Thus we have a constant heat differential in the system.
The only way I see this chip working, however, is if it had two reference points, one directly on the heat bath, and one directly on the heat sink. Refer to the crappy diagram below:
---------INSULATION -----------------------------------------INSULATION----------
---------------------------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------
HEAT BATH--------------------differential zone-----------------------HEAT SINK
---------------------------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------
---------INSULATION -----------------------------------------INSULATION----------
However, they said the chip was small, so I'm perplexed... unless the ship has a miniature heat sink poking out of the top of it... in which case, of course it's going to be less efficient because it's not taking advantage of the entire heat gradient at hand.
Also, since the ship is small, they should theoretically just be able to create a large matrix of them and suck out more energy. Of course that would require weight and space, which they are trying to reduce, but it would work. Picture it: if you had a processor surrounded by a field of these things, the first ones would pick up a*100% (where "a" is the available heat energy) and re-emit a*80%, the next ring would pick up a*80% and re-emit a*64%, then a*51.2%, then a*40.96%, etc. etc. As N -> infinity, the system would attain zero entropy... however, that's not very space efficient ;-)
Of course, then, you have to work out the expenditure of energy in the units' production, and then we get into a discussion of "Energy Balance" which will end up being positive anyway. As has been noted time and time again, entropy cannot be stopped... only slowed down, which is what this device would do.
-Clive
One good way to do this, and likely the most efficient, would be to manufacture the cpu, and other chips with this, as part of the chip itself. That way, it would have a high degree of thermal coupling. The residual (non recoverable) heat could be then removed by a heatsink bonded directly to the chip?sans case. One factory manufactured unit!
This way, the chip could be the same size as the cpu die. The question is just how efficient can this actually be? What I've seen of it so far, is that is has a way to go before an actual production quality product rolls out.
It doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with me. I basically said that you could prevent excess heat from escaping the system by having an infinite array of these things... meaning that they would act as a cooling device. No, not a cooling device, since they aren't really cooling anything. Just insulating against heat loss.
...
-Clive
No, I am not disagreeing with you--at least. This device is supposed to convert heat that would have been vented to the air into electricity. This necessarily makes it a cooling device. It would maintain the computer's processor at a high constant temperature. If it were to lower the temperature of the processor, the device's conversion efficiency efficiency. Assuming that the processor is kept hot enough to boil water (Th=373 K/100 °C) and the cold temperature is about room temperature (Tc=300 K/27 °C), the maximum thermal efficiency of the device would be slightly less than 20%. Real conversion efficiency as high as 15% would be a major breakthrough.
Consider this: Intel has made remarkable progress is reducing the heat produced by its processors and thus their cooling requirements. This technique recovers lost heat by not losing it in the first place. 100% of Intel's recovered heat goes to a useful purpose. The best that Eneco can hope for is about 15%. You do the math.