As mentioned in an earlier post today, there is plenty of what can
be termed "free" electric-field from higher energy photons -
available all around us - i.e. such as an automotive exhaust
system, which could (in a perfect world) supply very intense
infrared (heat), for conversion into electricity. Except - for the
lack of "coherency" in the IR photons. Sure, you could use the
heat for steam, or for a Stirling engine, but those are Carnot
heat-engines - just like the ICE.
If there was an efficient way to convert that heat or any "free"
electric field (i.e. otherwise wasted) it would demand
**coherency** (like the maser/laser)... and that is where the
Sandia Photo-lattice comes in... oops... could come in... were
this technolgy not the neglected step-child of the decade, that
is. What's up with Sandia - are they too busy and too blind to see
the potential?
What the photolattice does is to convert lower-grade heat (~1000
F.) into coherent IR light, and very efficiently - in seeming
violation to Plank's Law. "Coherency" is the key to efficiency.
There is a double advantage in an automotive hydbrid in that there
are (almost) no Carnot losses when going from
electric-to-electric. The reference again:
"A Novel Photolattice with Extraordinary Properties"By Neil Savage
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/wonews/oct03/1003phot.html
"A device from Sandia emits infrared radiation at a fixed
wavelength and with a conversion efficiency that appears to defy
Planck's law"
OK. Here is a quick and not-so-dirty (actually very green)
speculative idea on a possible way that one might get lots of
energy from wasted exhaust heat in an automobile using the
perfected Sandia photolattice.
First you insulate the exhaust system so no heat is wasted, and do
not cool the engine, using ceramics if necessary for the parts,
and then you increase the diameter of a tubular section of the
exhaust manifold enough to accomodate another interior axial tube,
which will be heated by the exhaust. This interior-tube will
become, in effect, a linear accelerator tube.
75% of the heat of an ICE is wasted, normally. The photolattic can
use about a third of that. Consequently his addition might cut
that net number for total heat losses down to 50% and nearly
double the effective engine output, with no increase in fuel
usage, if done properly (ideal situation).
The tube is made of the photo-lattice material and is evacuated,
so that an electron gun at one end can fire a low voltage beam
down the interior tube, to be accelerated by the coherent crossed
electric field of the coherent IR light. This is analogous to the
first linear accelerators which used microwaves. At the other end
of the tube is a direct converter, which can be as simple as an
induction coil followed by a collector. This is
electric-to-eletric conversion, so it should be over 90% eff. You
would have to introduce pulsed electrons, in order to use
induction on the output - no problemo.
If the exhaust heat were 1200 degrees F. in and 800 out, say, that
400 degree difference is utilized by the photolattice, but it is
not Carnot limited. The photolattice removes a spectrum of heat
but only emits coherent light, presumably at the low end - which
is still a fractional eV. The beam gets accelerated by the
resultant crossed-field which is about 4,000 volts per cm so a 10
cm section could boost the beam up as much as 40,000 volts before
being slowed by the induction output coils.
Now if someone could just get Sandia interested in making the
photo-lattice material again, then something interesting might be
accomplished before oil runs out.
Of course the same kind of system could be utilized for converting
lower grade heat in a "warm" fusion LENR cell, should that one get
out of the lab by the time.
...and should Sandia gets their collective act togehter.... or
should I say gets theri "coherency act" together.
We may have to send Sparber up there to intervene, if he ever
comes down from flying over White Sands in UFOs....
Jones
