We've covered thermoelectric conversion before. Basically, it's when a device produces electricity when one part is hotter than another part. Obviously, this could be a fairly useful trick in capturing waste heat.
It would be even more awesome if they could be used to harvest the heat of our bodies, and use it to power our gadgets. Unfortunately, up until now, thermoelectric devices weren't able to be used with such slight temperature gradients. Well not anymore. The Fraunhofer Institute in Germany has managed to create energy with extremely small temperature differentials. The result, Palpatinesque power from the palm of your hands? Not quite, really, just about 200 millivolts...or roughly 100 times less energy than it takes to power your cell phone.
But that's the palm of the hand. Which got me thinking about areas of the body where the temperature differentials might be greater. The neck...the wrist...the...ahem...and now I am going to stop this list before anything disturbing happens.
Via Engadget and Discovery
See Also:
-Generating Electricity from Heat-
-Pulling Energy from Thin Air-
-Generating Power with Hotness (actually a solar bikini...sorry)-
Hits: 10901
Comments (3)
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Write comment
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
AUG 21
"it's looks nice, very useful ..."
View all Comments