Jul 28 2008
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Heat into Electricity
Researchers at Ohio State University claim to have developed a material which is twice as efficient as anything currently on the market at converting heat into electricity.
The researches claim that this could make cars more efficient by converting waste heat in the car exhaust into electrical energy.
One possible fly in the ointment is that the new material uses thallium which is extremely toxic, so that safeguards would be required during manufacture and disposal. However, the inventors say that the devices could be removed from old cars and put into new ones as the material could easily last the lifetime of several vehicles.
See Also: More-Efficient Thermoelectric article at MIT Technology Review.
