-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Whew. I was afraid they were going to plug electrodes into me or put me on a treadmill or something like that!
TEG ThermoElectric Generator
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/10/bmw-vw-investigating-how-thermoelectrics-may-juice-up-future-au/
(Actually I proposed the opposite idea... using electricity to pre-heat catalyst... Not to generate electricity from hot exhaust... Although both ideas have merit).
TEG ThermoElectric Generator
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/10/bmw-vw-investigating-how-thermoelectrics-may-juice-up-future-au/
(Actually I proposed the opposite idea... using electricity to pre-heat catalyst... Not to generate electricity from hot exhaust... Although both ideas have merit).
Last edited:
Electricity from body heat. I always thought the idea was silly. Much more plausible to think the machines used the computational capacity of the networked human brains. A rootkit installed in the wetware.
Which pill was which, again?
Which pill was which, again?
johnr
Member
Take any digital multimeter, set it to the most sensitive range, and hold one probe with each hand. You'll see that your body does generate electricity, but the amount is so minuscule that any circuit that can run from that power would have to be extremely low-energy and efficient. Maybe a watch or a smart card or something similar might stand a chance.
So far TEG's from exhaust gasses (around 700 degrees Celsius) could only do get 300-400W or half a horsepower tops.
Big assumptions made here, don't nitpick me on this one:
With 90% efficiency, that would mean the thermal power is around 24 kW at full throttle. If a Seebeck TEG could do 15% efficiency (assuming all power gets to the TEG magically) you would have 3.6kW of power. This of course, is no number to expect, rather somewhere in the 500-1000W zone (still sounds optimistic). At normal speeds, it would most certainly not pay back the investment.
While I am positive Rankine cycle could be used successfully to assist ICE's, on electric cars we still have a long way to go before TEG's are to become interesting.
Big assumptions made here, don't nitpick me on this one:
With 90% efficiency, that would mean the thermal power is around 24 kW at full throttle. If a Seebeck TEG could do 15% efficiency (assuming all power gets to the TEG magically) you would have 3.6kW of power. This of course, is no number to expect, rather somewhere in the 500-1000W zone (still sounds optimistic). At normal speeds, it would most certainly not pay back the investment.
While I am positive Rankine cycle could be used successfully to assist ICE's, on electric cars we still have a long way to go before TEG's are to become interesting.
Similar threads
