Engineering team invents novel direct thermal charging cell for converting low-grade waste heat to usable electricity (Tech Xplore)
Dr. Tony Shien-Ping Feng of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and his team invented a Direct Thermal Charging Cell (DTCC) which can effectively convert heat to electricity, creating a huge potential to reduce greenhouse effects by capturing exhaust heat and cutting down primary energy wastage.
Low grade heat is abundantly available in industrial processes (80 to 150°C), as well as in the environment, living things, solar-thermal (50 to 60°C) and geothermal energy.
Dr. Feng said: "Efficient low-grade heat recovery can help to reduce greenhouse gas emission but current technologies to convert this heat to electricity is still far from optimum. DTCC yields a conversion efficiency of over 3.5%, surpassing all existing thermo-electrochemical and thermo-electric systems, which is either too costly or complicated, or too low in efficiency for everyday applications. DTCC is a revolutionary design with great potentials in smart and sustainable energy devices."
