Timeline for Are there any viable DIY or commercial solutions to convert waste heat to electricity?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
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| May 26, 2014 at 10:45 | comment | added | mart | see this physics SE question and answers for more on Vortex tubes: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63626/… | |
| May 21, 2014 at 12:06 | comment | added | Madlozoz | About the vortex tube. It means that if I collect rain water at the second floor, I can get hot and cold water for free at floor level, right? Gravity providing the pressure. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 9:14 | comment | added | mart | Any way, talking about using waste pressure is completely off the question. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:56 | comment | added | Rody Oldenhuis | @mart: I'd rather not; with the exception of high-end (and completely unaffordable) models, turbines tend to be noisy, complicated, maintenance-hungry devices (yes, also the Tesla ones). I'd rather sacrifice some efficiency in favor of a no-moving-parts solution. I have to sleep next to it, mind you! | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:53 | comment | added | mart | If you have a pressurized waste product (excess compressor air), build a turbine. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:52 | history | edited | Rody Oldenhuis | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 7, 2013 at 8:50 | comment | added | Rody Oldenhuis | @mart: the claim that a vortex tube is efficient stems from the fact that you need not insert any external energy for it to work provided you already have a pressurized waste product. The objective here is to regain at least some heat that would otherwise be lost in the sewer, by (slightly) modifying existing household systems. I'm not saying you should build a 500m tall tower, I'm saying you could use any pressure that's already there to try and improve the efficiency of the heat engine. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:43 | comment | added | Rody Oldenhuis | @mart: You are absolutely right, and I do not know how I can have seen 20% efficient engines. I'll remove that statement. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:29 | comment | added | mart | I think there's a misconception on your side re. what the vortex tube does. I'll see if I can bang up a good question for the physics SE. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:23 | comment | added | mart | And using the work done by the water works to pump the water and maintain pressure to drive a refridgerator hardly seems sustainable? BTW, where does the claim com from that the vortex tube is particular efficient? I've seen nothing of the sort in the linked literature. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:22 | comment | added | mart | Still no heat recovery. Creating pressure almost always involves expending (high grade) mechanical work. the 20-50 bar pressure at the inlet for water, mentioned in the wiki article translate to 200-500m height! | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:19 | comment | added | mart | I don't believe 20% at "a few degrees" - a CArnot efficiency of 20% would equate a Temp diff between 0°C and 68°C - more than a few degrees. Mind that that's the limit case for any heat engine, stirling engines often fare worse because of dead spaces, insufficient heat storage within and other engineering difficulties. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 8:18 | comment | added | Rody Oldenhuis | @mart: True. But another way of seeing this is that it removes the cold part at the expense of pressure, leaving you with the hot part. Pressure is easy enough to create; water's pretty heavy so you could just use its own weight in some sort of vertical shaft, or build something around the fact that pressures in regular water taps are already in the order of ~10 bars. | |
| May 7, 2013 at 7:41 | comment | added | mart | The Vortex tube takes mechanical energy (pressure) as input, and produces the most expensive form of heat - coldness. That's the opposite of heat recovery. Coll device, though. | |
| May 6, 2013 at 21:47 | history | edited | Rody Oldenhuis | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 6, 2013 at 17:50 | review | First posts | |||
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| May 6, 2013 at 17:37 | history | edited | Rody Oldenhuis | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 6, 2013 at 17:32 | history | answered | Rody Oldenhuis | CC BY-SA 3.0 |