Генерирование энергии и снижение уровня загрязнений окружающей среды с помощью термоэлектрического преобразователя на основе щелочных металлов

Аннотация

Alkali Metal Thermo Electric Convertor (AMTEC) is a device for directly converting heat to electricity with high efficiency. It uses infrared radiation to releases electrons from an alkali metal (as the name suggests). This metal in the form of vapor acts as the working material. In this case sodium is chosen as the working material for its appropriate properties for this task. AMTEC operates as a thermally regenerative electrochemical cell by expanding alkali metal vapors through the pressure differential across an electrolyte membrane. AMTEC laboratory devices have achieved efficiencies as high as 19% and system designs indicate that efficiencies up to 40% or more may be possible. Small AMTEC systems have shown 27% cell and 23% system efficiencies. AMTEC requires heat energy input at modest temperatures. It can, therefore, recycle heat rejected from other devices. This adaptability makes AMTEC very attractive for many environmentally friendly potential applications. Utilization and recycling of waste energy have been the mainstay along with the conservation of energy these days. AMTEC, with the versatility of the kind of energy it uses, is capable to handle this problem by directly utilizing the waste energy of a fuel cell as an input for an energy conversion device. This concept may be extended to any kind of waste heat, from any source in any form to address the environmental aspect. The long life and efficiency of AMTEC are two important issues that presently researchers are concerned. The choice of materials and geometry of its sensitive components will be discussed with respect to those issues. We have also discussed AMTEC’s environmental aspect by cascading it with some device rejecting heat to its surrounding as one unit. AMTEC utilizes this waste heat as its input energy by this technique. On the one hand, this provides the efficient use of the waste energy preventing its dissipation in the region around; on the other hand, it suppresses all the more the thermal pollution.