High Efficiency Waste Heat Harvesting Using Novel Thermal Oscillators
The aim of this project was to enable practical energy generation from waste heat using pyroelectric (PE) materials with unprecedented efficiency. This aim was accomplished by engineering novel heat switches that overcome the current roadblock to pyroelectric energy harvesting. The heat switches produce a sustain temporal temperature differences from a constant flux heat source. Pyroelectric materials produce transient voltages in response to this generated temperature oscillation. The project solved the inability to generate sustained temperature cycles by utilizing LCEs to achieve passive thermal switching, or EDH of thermal fluid to actively bridging/de-bridging between heat source and pyroelectric layer.
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗