Phase Change materials for waste heat management

Votes: 9
Views: 4178

The idea that is proposed here is an Organic Rankine cycle that is compact and small and works on phase change material instead of a pump. This novel replacement can make this energy producing device run on just heat (even solar energy) as input. The output will be energy or power which can be used to attain power as output. The device Is so small and compact that it can be used in the rear of an automobile to tap the waste heat emitted from the radiator or to power a wheel chair on renewable energy. We are currently working on a method to reduce the space occupied by the phase change material to replace it with a electromagnetic fluid to serve the purpose.

The working logic is as follows.
In a conventional Rankine Cycle the pump takes in input as electrical energy and then pressurizes the operating fluid to then be transferred to the expander and compressor and so on. But when the purpose is to tap very little heat input to produce very little output, input as electrical energy input can not be afforded and that is the reason why only solar energy has been used for smaller heat input purposes. This novel replacement can be used to power wheel chairs and other smaller equipments and also utilize the waste heat of automobiles and aerospace equipments or even the waste heat from cooking to recharge a battery or inverter. The phase change material in its solid state is initially fit into a small chamber and pressurized to that small a volume externally. the heat that is then incident on the material heats it up and causes phase change, which happens even at a temp 5-10 degrees above room temperature (a variety of Phase change temperatures are available). This phase change is accompanied by a large change in volume which causes the operating fluid to be pressurized severely and with the help of a duckbill valve the minimum pressure change required for it to open is monitored. Once the fluid is pumped a coolant is slightly sprayed around to bring the material back to its normal state.

The above equipment can be used in rural places to tap the waste heat after cooking. Can be used to tap the solar heat to run automobiles of the physically challenged. Or to tap the waste heat of automobiles.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Barghav Hariharan
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Student
  • Barghav is inspired by:
    The fact that there are methods available to tap resources that are available on a large scale but seldom help to tap resources available around us. Using this to serve the disabled and under privileged.
  • Software used for this entry:
    CATIA, Matlab
  • Patent status:
    none