thermoelectric and pyroelectric power generation

[morpher44]

Today I was reading about the so called "pyroelectric effect".
I was surprised to read that this effect is in "bone" and "tendon"
as well as various minerals with asymmetric crystals.

All pyroelectric materials are also piezoelectric ... but the latter
is not true.

I would like to start a new thread here discussing this approach
for generating power and possibly proposing some experiments
or replications.

There is already a great interest in thermoelectric solutions too...

Thermoelectric Power Generator - Video

[morpher44]

thermoelectric

In my location, the summers are very hot. The inside of the house is
air-conditioned. The temperature differential between inside
and outside the house can be upwards to 30 degrees F.
In the winter, nights can be quite cold, and the home is heated.
At those times, temp. differential could be 70 degrees F.

This situation may represent an opportunity for power generating
during the night hours using temperature differences only without
placing a burden on the heating and cooling systems in the home.
The home is to be heated or cooled anyway for its human occupants.

[morpher44]

Thermopiles...

Some of these thermopiles are amazing.

I'm especially impressed by the Yamamoto patent: 1905 ...
which looks like yet another mystery to work on.

Thermo-Electric Generators.

Some of these are decent little machines with usable wattage.

[Tishatang]

Hi morpher44

This is from the book called THE BOY ELECTRICIAN by Alfred P. Morgan pub 1913. Search for it on Scribd On page 185 of the doc which is page 355 of the book is this brief mention of a solar cell made of violet glass and dissimilar metals. About the size of a common window. Old stuff I know like a thermocouple. But claimed one day in sun could light 30 light bulbs for three days! Can a modern solar cell that size do that? Have we been led down the wrong path? If they could do that in before 1913, where is that tech today, other than suppressed? Only said Massachusetts inventor. Maybe someone can find patent? Twisted wires of copper and German-silver. Simple to make if not tedious. German-silver wire? Maybe common back then?

tishatang

[morpher44]

the thermpile

Hi morpher44

This is from the book called THE BOY ELECTRICIAN by Alfred P. Morgan pub 1913. Search for it on Scribd On page 185 of the doc which is page 355 of the book is this brief mention of a solar cell made of violet glass and dissimilar metals. About the size of a common window. Old stuff I know like a thermocouple. But claimed one day in sun could light 30 light bulbs for three days! Can a modern solar cell that size do that? Have we been led down the wrong path? If they could do that in before 1913, where is that tech today, other than suppressed? Only said Massachusetts inventor. Maybe someone can find patent? Twisted wires of copper and German-silver. Simple to make if not tedious. German-silver wire? Maybe common back then?

tishatang

@Tishatang

Thanks for re-finding that book again. I got a kick out of seeing it
again. Yes I saw the thermopile in that book which I may attempt
to replicate if I get a chance.

You can find German Silver wire:
Nickel Silver Wire

I think this thing might work with other dissimilar metals too.
Exposed steel wire and copper wire might do it. They produce
a current for earth batteries ... so why not?

Thermopiles, unlike solar cells, work on heat not light ...
and so you can use them at nite too ... if you have a heat
source ... a simple fire.
It would be very nice to charge a 12V battery using only a candle.

[Michael John Nunnerley]

@Tishatang

Thanks for re-finding that book again. I got a kick out of seeing it
again. Yes I saw the thermopile in that book which I may attempt
to replicate if I get a chance.

You can find German Silver wire:
Nickel Silver Wire

I think this thing might work with other dissimilar metals too.
Exposed steel wire and copper wire might do it. They produce
a current for earth batteries ... so why not?

Thermopiles, unlike solar cells, work on heat not light ...
and so you can use them at nite too ... if you have a heat
source ... a simple fire.
It would be very nice to charge a 12V battery using only a candle.

Hi all

Any two disimilar metals will work, the wider apart in their atomic structure the better they will work, it is this difference that creates the current.

I have a design on a heating and air conditioning system that uses the temperature difference between night and day, can't sell it, why, it does not use hardly any energy

Mike

[Tishatang]

I am curious by the use of violet glass from the example in the old book. Why not clear glass. Doesn't violet block out infra-red? Not my area of knowledge, but seems to me violet is a long way from the infra-red that carries heat. Maybe something else is going on. Maybe collection cosmic rays or something?

[Inquorate]

Purple dye

YouTube - Making LCD into Solar Panel

This is faintly reminiscent of the thermoelectric panel, thought it may help.

[morpher44]

violet glass

I am curious by the use of violet glass from the example in the old book. Why not clear glass. Doesn't violet block out infra-red? Not my area of knowledge, but seems to me violet is a long way from the infra-red that carries heat. Maybe something else is going on. Maybe collection cosmic rays or something?

My guess would be that you want very dark glass. The darker the better.
The goal here is to produce heat ... and so by using a dark glass,
more heat is absorbed.

[tak22]

Tourmaline, "The Electric Stone"

Here's a source of some very closely and interesting related info:

Tourmaline, "The Electric Stone", is exploited in hundreds of patents. Here are several select patents and articles of especial interest in regard to the production of electricity by tourmaline, and agriculture.

See also : T.T. BROWN / Petrovoltaics ... Earth Batteries ... Marcus REID / Crystal Battery ... John HUTCHISON / Hutchison Effect &c...

tourmaline

tak

[Tishatang]

Violet glass

I am still curious about violet glass. Makes no sense for a heat thermopile principle. I did find this from Amazon.com

Product Description
Nickel Silver Wire (German Silver) C75200 ASTM 206 Nickel Silver is a name applied to an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc. The very early nickel silvers actually contained small amounts of silver. We carry the most common alloy nickel silver C75200 which nominally contains 65% copper, 18% nickel, and 17% zinc and is referred to as nickel silver 65-18. The alloys conductivity is about 6% that of copper. Condition is annealed but cold working will harden and increase the tensile strength.

****************

We might assume that 100 years ago, there was some silver in the wire. This would give it more conductivity to maybe 8% of copper?

I also found out that nickel is added to glass to make the violet color. Is the nickel in the glass stimulating the nickel in the alloy wire? I am trying to think outside the box if a new principle was discovered back then and why it was suppressed?

[morpher44]

Thermopile

My crude thermopile experiment...

YouTube - Thermopile

[morpher44]

off-the-shelf

Those who want to experiment with off-the-shelf parts
that produce power from heat, check out:

Tellurex - Power generation products

It might be interesting to run a Joule Thief circuit, for example,
using a candle.

[Freezer]

My crude thermopile experiment...

YouTube - Thermopile

Very nice morpher, I'm surprised that you got over a volt. What type of amperage is it putting out? Usually these thermopiles put out low voltage high amperage, perhaps as you suggested, try linking a joule thief to it. Be interesting if you could get more lumens than a candle puts out. I remember Boyd Bushman had a patent with a bunch of metallic spikes which he said put out electricity from the heat difference, which seemed to me like a thermopile. I do have a 14.7 watt thermoelectric generator module lying around, but haven't done much experimenting with it, because I don't have a good enough heatsink for it. I could never get anything over a 1 volt with it as is, but the amperage was good.

[morpher44]

experiment in thermopile...

Very nice morpher, I'm surprised that you got over a volt. What type of amperage is it putting out? Usually these thermopiles put out low voltage high amperage, perhaps as you suggested, try linking a joule thief to it. Be interesting if you could get more lumens than a candle puts out. I remember Boyd Bushman had a patent with a bunch of metallic spikes which he said put out electricity from the heat difference, which seemed to me like a thermopile.

@Freezer
My meter was showing millivolts ... so I got from 1.5 to 3 millivolts.
It was kinda disappointing, but I did not use German Silver wire
liked called for in the book. Perhaps that wire with copper has
a more dramatic result.

I doubt it will drive a Joule Thief until I can get upwards to 10 milliamps
and 1 volt or so. Its probably possible with enough wire pairs or
a hotter source of heat.

I may fork out for an off-the-shelf solution since this seems like
a nice nite-time way of producing power to charge a battery
or run some low-power electronics.
During a power failure, everyone pulls out their candles.
Wouldn't it be cool if you could drive a thermopile and run
a radio or something. It might be a good emergency power
solution. I'm surprised you can't buy this on the market today.

Its also interesting that you can run electrogenerators in reverse
to produce cooling.