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ENECO Engineering Low-Heat-to-Electricity Conversion for Market
The science is done, what remains is to engineer for production, with
applications such as waste-heat and concentrated solar energy harnessing.
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click for enlargement
ENECO die (wafer) test set-up.
Sample of ~1 square millimeter is placed between heat source on bottom and
ambient temperature on the top. Test method was certified by NIST. (Ref.) |
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Pure Energy Systems News
Copyright © 2007
SALT LAKE CITY, UT, USA -- On Saturday, Jan. 6, 2006, Sterling Allan conducted a
live interview with Howard L. (Lew)
Brown, CEO of ENECO, which has a thermal-electric technology for converting heat
into electricity via a solid state wafer.
The technology is presently rated in the top ten of the New Energy Congress'
(NEC) Top 100 Energy Technologies listing. (Ref.)
Articles about it have been published in at least two peer-review
journals. ENECO'S scientific testing apparatus has been certified by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado,
whose independent (and non-published, since NIST cannot endorse commercial
ventures) experimental conclusions report an efficiency of 38% of the Carnot
limits. (Ref.)
Though the wafers begin generating electricity with a gradient (Δ T) as low
as 1°C at room temperature, the range of feasible operation is at much larger
temperature gradients and at temperatures of between around 200°C and
600°C. This points to a wide range of industrial waste-heat, geothermal,
and commercial solar applications. Converting exhaust heat into
electricity, to replace the alternator in a vehicle, is one application being
vigorously pursued by ENECO and an auto industry partner.
ENECO chips could replace the Stirling engine in Stirling Energy System's (SES)
commercial solar arrays, producing electricity at approximately twice the
efficiency but at half the cost. (Ref.)
With their present set-up, SES is already competitive with conventional energy
generation, so an alliance with ENECO would enable them to drop substantially
lower than conventional energy prices. Furthermore, the size would be much
smaller, and the maintenance far less.
The typical method of converting sun energy to electricity is via a photovoltaic
(PV) module. They typically cost around $4 to $6.00 per Watt, whereas the
ENECO modules are projected to cost between $1 and $4.00 per Watt.
Furthermore, the ENECO module is more efficient at converting sun energy to
electricity. In harnessing heat, it draws from a much wider spectrum of
the electromagnetic spectrum emitted by the sun -- not just from the visible
wavelengths.
Inversely, if electricity is applied to the die, a refrigeration effect is
evoked, potentially going down as low as minus 200°C. This, likewise, has
a wide range of commercial applications, such as cooling computer systems.
ENECO envisions harnessing the heat produced in a laptop motherboard, for
example, and then using that energy to cool the essential components.
"The science is done", says Brown. "Now we just need to
engineer this for production," which he anticipates could be ready within
as little as half a year. The company is also forging strategic
partnerships with a number of heavy-hitter industrial companies, such as MagCorp
in Utah, which see a lot of waste heat going unused. By establishing
partnerships with these companies, ENECO is able to get closer to its financial
requirements for completing the engineering process.
ENECO is also under contract to go public in the London Exchange within the next
12-16 months, to further raise funds for its ongoing development and
commercialization. They chose London over New York for a number of
strategically advantageous reasons, several of which are enumerated in a recent
Wall Street Journal article addressing the shift from NY to London.
The company was established in 1991 by Hal Fox in connection with cold fusion
research being performed by Pons and Fleishmann at the University of Utah.
ENECO was tasked with finding a way of efficiently harnessing low-level
heat. In order to be feasible, cold fusion needed a method of converting
low-level heat into electricity. Two of the earlier methods analyzed were
quantum tunneling and piezo effects (quartz), which ENECO ruled this out as not
being feasible.
This many years later, the number of investors still anxiously waiting for a
return on their investment is substantial, adding that much more pressure on
ENECO to get something into the marketplace. Notwithstanding the long time
it has taken, when given an option, most investors opt for stock options rather
then cashing out.
Thermalelectric technology has been around for about 150 years, actually
predating internal combustion engine technology. While ENECO's variations
draw from the thermionic and thermoelectric predecessor work, it has developed
substantial intellectual property of its own. Ten U.S. patents have been
issues, and nearly that many have been issued in other jurisdictions.
There are 48 patents filed or pending, in all. Brown said ENECO would
gladly license this IP to interested parties. "One company can't
possibly do all that can be done with this technology," he said. The
waste heat from fossil fuel combustion alone represents a trillion-dollar
market.
Charles T. Maxwell, Senior Energy Analyst from the Wall Street firm, Weeden
& Co, told Brown: "The cheapest barrel of oil is the one not
consumed".
Brown, a Ph.D. Plasma Physicist and successful businessman, joined the ENECO
team five years ago, and holds himself very confidently in articulating both the
technical and business aspects of the company. The whiteboard in his
office has the archetypal markings of a brilliant mind busy communicating the
ENECO vision to the myriad of visitors that frequent the place from all over the
world.
Allan visited Brown at the ENECO facility in Salt Lake City this past Wednesday,
and observed a prototype demonstration in which a die of dimensions 1 mm x 1 mm
x 0.5 mm was subjected to increasing heat, and produced increasing voltage and
amperage proportionately. When the temperature in the lower
electrode reached 300°C, while the upper electrode was maintained at room
temperature, the voltage was at around 0.5 V, and the current was 4.7 amps.
The "staff scientist" running the tests was Victor Sevastyanenko,
Ph.D., a Professor of Plasma Physics, who also demonstrated the analysis
software he created. He has been with ENECO for five and a half years.
The test procedure entails taking a ½-inch diameter boule [rod] of the alloy,
cutting it thinly, polishing its surface, then applying a the thin film
barrier. These are then sliced into 1 mm squared sizes called
"dies". The sample is then measured, washed with alcohol, and a
coating of indium gallium solder is applied (for conductivity) to the top and
bottom of the die, as well as to the surface of both electrodes where the die
will be set.
As heat is applied to the base electrode (copper rod of about ½-inch diameter),
the voltage begins to appear. A load (flat copper sheet) is intermittently
removed then added to complete the circuit, and the current is measured.
The temperature of the bottom electrode was determined by extrapolation via two
probes separated on the copper rod electrode. The thermal conductivity of
copper is well-known, so by measuring the difference between the two positions
in the rod, the temperature at the end of the electrode can be calculated.
click for enlargement
The high current production by the die requires the die to remain small and
not be scaled larger. Scaling will come in the form of modularity, joining
as many dies together as is needed for a given application.
Also present with Allan this past Wednesday's visit were Tai Robinson (ref.),
also of NEC; David W. Allan (ref.),
Sterling's father, who is an atomic clock physicist whose professional career
was spent at NIST in Boulder; and David Yurth (ref.),
who is involved with a different solid state thermal-electric conversion
technology.
Yurth thinks that ENECO faces some daunting engineering challenges in making
arrays of these very small dies that will hold up under the rigors of industrial
applications with higher heat and vibration. Brown responded that the
small size of the dies is an advantage inasmuch as the smaller mass means less
force being applied due to the acceleration forces that the vibrations induce,
per the equation F=ma. He does acknowledge that ENECO faces some heavy
engineering issues, especially considering the variable expansion coefficients
of the various materials that will be used in the die and its casing. Each
material behaves differently at different temperatures, so keeping things
together and properly fastened and electrically connected will not be an easy
task. Their object of a 10-year lifetime target, for industrial
applications, adds to the challenge.
Another contention that Yurth put forward is that the ENECO paradigm is like
taking a sledge hammer to the materials to liberate the electrons. The
technology Yurth is involved with, which he says will be announced in about
three weeks, works with nature, using homogeneous crystals that send the
electrons to their periphery when subjected to heat differential; and it is
scalable. The feasible, operational temperature of the technology Yurth is
involved with ranges from 0°C to 140°C. So the two technologies are more
supplemental than competitive in terms of their ranges of applications.
Yurth offered to assist ENECO identify solutions to the challenges they face in
engineering for production.
ENECO has been trying a wide range of alloys to try and find the optimal
combination for both thermal-electric conversion efficiency as well as cost and
environmental concerns. "Cadmium Tin Arsenide works really
well," said Brown, "but environmentally it has serious
problems." Cadmium is banned in Europe. Presently they are
focusing on an alloy of Lead, Tin, and Telluride, and are in process of
optimizing it.
A fairly significant gradient in temperature is needed for efficient
operation. For example, if one electrode was room temperature (17°C), the
other electrode would need to be 113°C to achieve a 10% efficiency (Carnot).
ENECO has five permanent employees, and works closely with the University of
Utah and other facilities for outsourcing certain tasks in the development
process. An early and still active player on the ENECO team is Peter
Hagelstein of MIT, who is world renowned for his ongoing work in the field of
cold fusion.
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REFERENCES:
See also
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Page composed by Sterling
D. Allan Jan. 5, 2007
Last updated January 12, 2007
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