Super Soaker Inventor Doubles Solar-Electric Efficiency

Lonnie Johnson, the Atlanta-based independent inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun (a true technological milestone), says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine. It represents a breakthrough new way to turn heat into power.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...h/4243793.html

This is the reeeeally cool part - "If it proves feasible, drastically reducing the cost of solar power would only be a start. JTEC could potentially harvest waste heat from internal combustion engines and combustion turbines, perhaps even the human body."

Same principle as a Stirling engine, but more efficient - too cool!

[mellow_hendrix]

"perhaps even the human body"

Great, now we're screwed: that's all the machines were waiting for.

I want to know more about the principle on which these work, but if they work and can me made inexpensively, they will be found absolutely everywhere where there is waste heat. Couldn't the go under photovoltaic cells - since they convert heat and not light, they could just use the temperature differential between the hot black cells and the surroundings?

[LMagic007]

It seems more of a solar hybrid technology. I guess your could call it a solar thermal fuel cell. If you used PV with battery to provide the kick start then you could add the word PV to the name, thus solar thermal PV fuel cell.