Aerogel Thermal Generator - Ambient Energy Harvester

[@victoryfirst2878]

THIS is incredible fella. You must keep on going further with this idea fella.

[@johnslugger]

*Here is Death-Valley, CA we have an 80 degree difference from ground to air temp. I made one of these with a ground rod at 55F. and during the day the Sun would bake to heat sink with 135 F. Sun light. We used this to charge 4000F super cap and it would light our living room with 40 leds all night long.*

[@Lidmotor]

That worked good. That coupled with a solar cell to fill in the occasional temp diff dead zone would be interesting to try.

[@littlegiant6869]

It makes me happy that you and lasersaber communicate. I extended one of your LED projects long ago using several other channel ideas in combination to get an amazing AC/DC light circuit that auto reads input from 0.5vdc to 120ac… I will always appreciate the efforts the both of you extend to humanity!!!

[@milkrecu]

I’m thankful for creative minds finding each other. Keep experimenting

[@Narcissus-q8n]

Hey lasersaber. It's funny I found your channel. We went to church together when I was a kid. Hope all is well and great channel by the way!

[@danmurphy5660]

I have been following you for years and you still amaze me with what you can achieve. Thanks for sharing this with all of us mate.

[@Leo99929]

I've been thinking about building one of these for a few years but never got around to it. So glad you did! You did a superb job. Well done!

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

I always wondered what could be accomplished with the back vs front side of solar panels as the differential is purportedly pretty significant.

[@lightdark00]

Same here, and it'd help keep the solar panel cooler, which could boost it's output.

[@colleenforrest7936]

Always thought it would be a good place for a Stirling engine, but maybe all you need is fins?

[@TheO5Council]

@@lightdark00 I was thinking you should have some additional thermoelectric generator in order to maintain a temperature difference within the insulated battery/generator something like this kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5XJmHd5f6xjhc0si=3UN8wBc8jSZXahde

[@nutzeeer]

You could generate hot water with the heat and cool the panels in the process. Free heat and an efficiency gain from cool panels.

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

Peltier effect is so under used, I think it has to do with efficiency but never spent the time to really dig into it. Nice to see you looking into it.

[@richardsandwell2285]

The engineering efficiency is around 5%, however what we see here is 100% efficient in reality, because although it may be only using 5% of the full energy available, the actual cost of powering the light source is zero because you have not had to pay some greedy fat cat to sit stuffing is face with caviar.

[@jameswoll]

Great experimenting! A fantastic demonstration and cool build! I was just thinking about TEGs yesterday. Often thinking about this tech. Very cool and simple and underused. A good analogy to this apparatus, I think, would be the tides coming in and out to move a generator. It's just siphoning off some energy from the natural fluxing; the back-and-forth of the temp. Awesome to see another LaserSaber build! LOVE your videos. Thanks for sharing. Hope you are having a great weekend!

[@NandR]

Love seeing more TEG stuff. Impressive run time. I bet the desert would have the best run time due to the extreme temp changes. I want to try TEGs on the back of solar panels.

[@lasersaber]

I think you have good ideas. This TEG effect coupled with solar could be very interesting.

[@sophiophile]

The amount of energy generated compared to a solar panel will be miniscule.

[@SNEAKYxWYZRD]

@@sophiophile It might be miniscule now but if it can recover any amount of energy that solar could not use then it could be worth it. If it is proven to be effective in any capacity then it might drive more people to experiment with other ways to improve the TEG or completely new methods. this would still be a great starting point. Even with the miniscule amount of energy generated it would still be nice to have a potentially constant power source to run lights or other low power equipment.

[@sophiophile]

@@SNEAKYxWYZRD There are already very low power electronic transmitters that use this method. This is cool for homebrew, but it's already been commercialized.

[@jasonbadman8518]

Brilliant sir i've been thinking about this. Temperature differences is energy differences which means you should be able to draw the power from it. And i've always wondered how to accomplish it and this is a good start.

[@VRplay86]

Great to see you again

[@chriskoszewski9812]

Ideal location of placement for this project as heat rising/ escaping and recovery cycle is a true constant. That particular spot in almost every building structure is evident on any thermal vision camera(wall and eve/soffit of the house). The addition of the capacitor hints to endless potential of storage. Thank you for your efforts!

[@Mr25thfret]

Fascinating! Happy to see you posting again!

[@kj7mmc]

Thanks for coming back. please keep making videos

[@LMde20]

Love it when you post vids we mere mortals can understand. And most importantly, emulate.🙂👍

[@CoruscantMe]

Too cool man, Glad to see you are still at it. I'm looking to use some of these peltier units for the thermal disparity to use on a Dotto Ring replication.

[@blandman3471]

I think you should make a version of this device that floats on water. There is almost always a difference in temperature between a body of water and the surrounding air. Also solar heated water could be used.

[@baraBober]

I was just thinking the same thing.

[@hanhbuisy8045]

Solar panel on the water with TEGs in the background may be better.

[@colleenforrest7936]

Or a sand battery

[@StringfellowHawke197]

This device would be really useful to power outdoor security lights in places where grid power is not available. It would not work all of the time, but most of the time it would work.

[@HydrogenFuelTechnologies]

I cant remember the exact location of the report but i read about 24/7 thermoelectric generators built by classified aerospace and defense at sea by using the temperature 🌡 difference between bottom of sea 🌊 vs surface, report stated huge power density potentials 24/7 365

[@StringfellowHawke197]

I read about that too. There is a super high initial cost of construction though.

[@jacobrollins37]

Cool experiment. Hope you can come up with something later.

[@otc-x1-b9]

Great power experiment. Energy is everywhere.... accumulation is the tricky part.

[@baraBober]

This is awesome!

[@colleenforrest7936]

For the cold weather outside operation, could you have some vibrating devices inside that react to the vibrations happing to the outside, such as traffic or loud music or heavy wind? These could maybe generate heat in the inside chamber? Maybe a dirty wide band radio reciever circuit thats geared to generate heat instead of signal to use ambient radio waves to keep the internal temperature up???

[@TheO5Council]

Thats a good idea I was thinking using some solar panel into and RF energy harvesting circuit in order to power some of these thermoelectric generators in order to complete out of the insulated device Everyone likes to use thermal energy but the reverse can be used just as well capture the cold and use the outside temperature as the heat source kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5XJmHd5f6xjhc0si=3UN8wBc8jSZXahde

[@colleenforrest7936]

@@TheO5Council interesting... So technically we could be using dry ice as a battery. I wonder how that heat reflecting paint would work with these?

[@colleenforrest7936]

@@TheO5Council Apparently you can use the differential between the surface of the Moon and the internal temperature to power things. The external temp gets to about +/- 250°F and about 100 ft down its a steady 68°F. So you can generate with the differential most of the Lunar night as well as lunar day. Not sure how close or how long the surface temp hovers near 68. Could be Lunar Twilight or some bit after, depending on how easily the surface rocks lose their heat in Moon conditions

[@simoncleret]

Love the flashlight idea

[@Abricos4440]

I made such a generator a couple of years ago ... the experiment lasted more than a year ... I installed it instead of a door in the attic ... one side was heated or cooled from the space in the attic and the other in the house ... also wanted to take cooling from the basement from groundwater ..

[@mitza22]

Good job Lasersaber i always watch with pleasure your videos.

[@animefusion-ns3oy]

Fantastic experiment thanks for the upload as always!!!!!

[@couchninja2997]

good to see your back

[@MiniLuv-1984]

Interesting idea. Aluminium is a great thermal conductor but has a relatively low specific heat capacity. I don't think the thermal conductance of aluminium is required as the energy being drawn from the system is way less than the energy that can be drawn thermally from the aluminium core. What I'm getting at is I wonder if you can use a different core material that offers greater thermal capacity than aluminium. Water has almost 5 times the thermal capacity of aluminium and much cheaper. I guess with water you will have a heat sink immersed in the water then the Peltier module then ambient heat sink. Worth considering?

[@dimitar4y]

There might be a relationship between core materials and efficiency. I Can't quite picture it in my head, but too high heat capacity may harm the performance?

[@MiniLuv-1984]

@@dimitar4y I guess the thermal mass getting too big means it will have other issues, like difficulty in moving it, but the balance (I think) is between how much energy you want out (determined by thermal conductance of the thermal mass) verses the total energy stored as heat (how long it will last). If you want energy delivered faster, (as in greater Watts) then you need better thermal conductivity in the core, if you want more stored energy capacity then specific energy density rules the roost. With aluminium, the energy density is low but the thermal transfer potential is very high. Not what is really required to run a led. I can imagine a litre of water, well insulated will be a better match. PS, I'd put the Peltier in the middle of the side of the bottle. A practical solution will take into account the degree of atmospheric thermal variations and the rate at which these thermal variations occur.

[@mathewbaldwin2664]

Discovered your channel today and I had to comment that I love your work! After looking through your videos, I was curious if you've done any more work on the crystal batteries? Are the one's you built still running?

[@richardsandwell2285]

What great work, I have always said that we never harness the changes in temperature properly, ok this is small scale, but I do think it is the way forward. We need to totally detach ourselves from the energy grid and cut off the supply of money to those making obscene profits at our hard earned expense.

[@bardenegri21]

Curious if the insulation and thermal mass inside a vacuum insulated water flask would be appropriate for something like this. Great stuff

[@lasersaber]

Yes, I need to try that next.

[@oxiigen]

Wow! Maestro is back! \o/

[@IVIichal-hu6jp]

You could replace the aluminium core for a glass or insulated bottle and fill that up with water and a bit of air. The specific amount of heat stored would be 4 times higher, especially around freezing

[@pkhockey9]

using a ground spike outside (grounding electric) goes down 8-10 feet and should always be ~50deg at the bottom end. there would most likely be a big temperature differential above and below and harvesting that through some seebeck/thomson effect would always be available, no? just figuring out a design to take advantage of that is a cool thought process and your experiment is taking me down a rabbit hole i haven't thought about in years ... thx!!

[@chaorrottai]

You could use this concept to generate power with a lake or river. The water is almost always a different temperature than the air. You could also use a great pipe in the ground and use the ground as your great battery as well, the ground is also, basically always a different temp than the air.

[@cryptoalchemist369]

Epic work!

[@silverclouds3725]

I love it!! But if I didn't want to fool with those sheets of aerogel (the reviews kinda dissuaded me!), i wonder if I could get an effect with... Maybe a vacuum thermo full of aluminum nitride? Or even iron filings? Or --insert better material here-- ? Fascinating!! Thank you for this video!!

[@colleenforrest7936]

I was thinking about Nighthawk's thermal paint 🤔

[@zer0b0t]

Hmm what about in places with lots of sun heat? I'm wondering how bright of a light and for how long I might get something like that working. But it would be more like to accumulate heat to use it during the night and the differential would be a secondary thing

[@MellowMaple]

This is perfect for recharging batteries passively

[@manassesfrancisco816]

Gosto dos seus vídeos, pois vejo verdade neles. Diferentemente de outros canais. Já montei algumas de suas experiências e todas funcionaram.

[@sipplix]

Maybe build a capacitor bank and charge it, and use a light sensor to switch a LED on at night.

[@haydenc2742]

I wonder if you could do a heatpipe or some way to move heat from inside to outside, or even a copper ground rod to transfer the heat, then use that to charge a supercapacitor an light up a yard light with a short segment of copper rod, heck maybe a water filled copper tube smashed on one end and have a flat end cap soldered to the end...permanent power for yard lights (kinda expensive for a $26 peltier type device!) I wonder what the current output is...could it be used in conjunction with say a car battery and boosted to trickle charge the battery when the inside of the car is stupid hot, and in the shade underneath could be quite cooler

[@jameswoll]

Would love to see you scale it up! Like you did with the atmo motor.

[@fc3sbob]

what if you treated it like a battery where you have an insulated thermal mass on the top and on the bottom, input power to charge it and it will heat one side and cool the other and use that difference to power something. Also it would be helpful to have a thermocouple on each side to see the difference in temperature you are working with and the efficiency of your insulation.

[@tapuout101]

Air turns into water(dew) just off the night time temperature change. I wonder can he power a home energy efficient bulb? I think those are a few watts to run.

[@Edmorbus]

excellent video

[@sophiophile]

After all this effort, you did no calculations/measurements of power output over time, (timeseries of how many mW)?

[@rodriguezfranco3839]

Hi laser saber , would you test Audio Car Capacitors as batery reemplacement ? I think they have enough capacitance and they're 12v caps but never seen someone trying to start a engine with them

[@dimitar4y]

Okay, so here's an interesting question. Would a fan pointed at it improve efficiency or reduce efficiency? Externally powered vs internally powered.

[@josepherickson7618]

Well done great job thank you so much for sharing amazing work epic hope you're doing well have a blessed and wonderful memorial Day weekend

[@green_light_8806]

Super cool video 🎉 very educational and inspirational 👏

[@lasersaber]

Thanks!

[@roidroid]

Ok someone's gotta ask... Why does your "Aerogel" there look Fibrous? What i'm seeing there looks like mineral-wool or a similar product made by a slag spun method, not *Aerogel.*

[@pless.]

Nighthawk and light made a video on thermal cooling paint. Would be interesting to see how that could be used to create the temperature difference considering how cheap he made it for

[@BillHallProductions]

I've been thinking about low temp thermal for so long. I'd like to pair it with soalr thermal

[@bromike]

They gonna get you bro 😮

[@mouhaahaahaa]

huh. does it light up because it lags after the outside temperature which changes slowly over time as the sun moves, always having a differential? what is the lifespan of this gel? this is very interesting.

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

Awesome project! I have a lot of similar parts laying around in my workshop waiting to be combined into a project. I might try my hand at it :) It's not "free" free though, you'll have to eat to keep warm. So unless you are a gardener who uses no tools, uses a free piece of land, and only grows edible plants from seeds that they found for free it's not free.

[@st33ldi9ital]

So, what would happen if you used opposite extremes of thermal conductive materials? Say boron nitride blank cube on insulated side and aerogel or polyurethane foam on the open side? Possibly even bury the insulated side in earth.

[@TravisL.Desmadreson]

Keep up the good work.

[@ivan333777]

Imagine a large array of these, but bigger in size. For sunny climates make top heat sink super black, make bottom heat sink either dipped into underground water, cold creek, lake or just deeper into the ground. There should always be large temperature differential. Plug it into a battery array to capture excess energy and smooth out spikes in energy demand.

[@hackmedia7755]

what is the max power output you can get from these peltier cells?

[@ronrothrock7116]

@lasersaber could you make one of these that used the ground for the heat sink rather than that aluminum core? What I'm wondering is if you could make some of those sidewalk lights that don't have solar panels on them. Think of the novelty of that! "Just stick this thing in the ground and it lights up your sidewalk!" I think you could make some money off that product (as well as the 100s of other ideas others might suggest).

[@kellycarver2500]

So, can you make a larger one, and I'd like to buy one from you, once you get one that can sustain a couple lights, or other elec device..

[@planecrazyish]

Interesting stuff 👍👏👏👏👏👏

[@FreeKanal]

What if you used a metal rod buried in the ground as a core and outside radiator picking ambient air temperature.

[@joebloe9901]

"Brilliant" concept.😃

[@zer0b0t]

I think you could experiment with the semiconductor pellets if you can buy them in separate pieces or salvage them from a peltier module to make the flashlight more ergonomic, should be interesting

[@InfinionExperiments]

Hmm, it sounds like you might have read through Dr. Wilhelm Reich's 1940's work on the Orgone Accumulator and/or Peter Lindemann's open system thermodynamics videos. Great concept in any case!

[@planetengineeringofficial8545]

Wouldn't water as a core work better?

[@MiniLuv-1984]

I suggested the same thing, but in several paragraphs. Glad you wrote it out so much more clearly and briefly.

[@planetengineeringofficial8545]

@@MiniLuv-1984 Looked for your comment and yeah we can agree here.

[@openheart6113]

If you had a super capacitor it could run the led for quite some time can you run a led without. I tried it without success.

[@jtcustomknives]

Have often thought that doing this but driving aluminum rods into the ground would be slick

[@BrUh-dx3gt]

thats a very interesting video thanks to share , hence peliter device converting temp deference to energy efficiency is very low (2-3)percent iwould recommended doing the same steps here but with sterling engine instead

[@Muonium1]

This reminds me very much of the 17th century scientist Robert Boyle's list of desirous things which he hoped could be achieved through science. Namely, second to last on the list: "a perpetual light".

[@dimitar4y]

........ Actually, the usability is small, but there's a lot of unexplored potential here. Garden lamps could work on this principle forever.

[@levon9999]

Very creative! Thanks for sharing! What TEC did you use and why?

[@hullinstruments]

He lives!

[@L337g4m3r]

Now connect one to the ez spin motor and see how little temperature differential you need to power it.

[@АлександрКузнецов-м9л5ы]

А что если соединить элементы Пельтье последовательно, чтобы один элемент охлаждал другой?

[@danz409]

pretty neat. consider this. matalic form of lithium can hold 4x as much heat/voidance of heat (thermal capacitance) as aluminum. would be intresting to make a thermal battery out of that. just don't get it wet... lol

[@think-about-it-777]

here's a meditation: public broadcast radio waves are a form of energy being distributed with the intent of entertainment - but they can be harvested and converted back into electricity. right?

[@mrimc]

Great work. Thanks for sharing. ☆

[@eppiox]

Very cool! (Except the mm/dd/yyyy date format)

[@jozsab1]

Been years I wanted to do this. My idea was to put some water bottle or something inside the thermal blanket because it has a lot more capacity(4184 joules/(Kg K) = about 1 Watt/hour for C change / kg) to absorb / release heat. But I guess for a LED, simple empty space will do it.

[@jeromecarterii366]

I thought about something like this, but, for simplicity, why not make cement heat sinks and put them 12 ft in the ground . It's always a steady temperature in contrast to the ambient air. So my thinking was, make an array of these and scale it to get the power you need. The problem that I ran into is finding materials that are inexpensive with a high differential Seebeck coefficient difference. You can find tables online. Moderately inexpensive materials like copper and iron would work in place of the N PN junctions in the Peltier chips but you'd need to assemble your arrays yourself. I've seen videos of people making these on KZbin. Their output isn't terrific though. But, as a solid-state, simple material energy source, they're practically always on.

[@bearnaff9387]

You might well be onto something with the suggestion of subterranean cement. Apparently, mixing enough carbon black into the cement will create a fairly reasonable capacitor with an incredibly low cost, even if the energy density isn't particularly high. One could attempt to replicate the MIT results in rod form, then seal and bury the rods underground to act as a temperature sink and storage medium for the themroelectric pile. Of course, this system won't produce nearly enough energy to offset the cost of making it if it needs to be buried, but it's a neat idea.

[@dragonsage6909]

Brilliant, heat exchange as a power source, now to integrate this principal into a suit with lithium ion battery belt for mobile power.. :) Thx

[@darknightfawkes1028]

Imagine making an absolutely huge version of one of these that absorbs the heat of the summer and then does the opposite in the winter 😂

[@kevinroberts781]

Use it to trickle charge a larger battery.

[@tracewallace23]

Since it works in Both Directions, Does a greater temperature differentiation produce a greater voltage?🤷‍♂️ (Is there a "sweet spot?) This could be a "bigger is better" situation🙂 Can it be made to be easily recycled? Very interesting stuff👍💪 what would happen if, 🤔 Make it like Russian nesting dolls, with liquid nitrogen at it's core and heat sinks in each layer, (progressive in size) wiring parallel vs in series should provide some interesting results I can't wait to see more🙂😎

[@hi-tech-guy-1823]

I would Charge up a few LTO Cells (Lithium Titanate Oxide) And use a Active bi Directional cell Equaliser + Smart BMS (With RS Serial + Bluetooth ) To charge up other cells in Series to Gain more voltage 12V ~ 48V - 400V ~ 800V ~ 1500V DC For Inverters and MPPT VFD that can deal with voltages this high and use "Veam ITT Cannon Powerlock PowerSafe Single Pole 500A & 800A Connectors" Series + "Powerlock Powersafe Sequential Mating Box 800A" to make playing with 400V ~ 800V ~ 1500V DC Safe

[@SaucemanSauceman]

Cool!

[@freethisone]

The most important part is the theory of radiant, and cosmic power.. more importantly Induction, and capacitive charge pertaining to Tesla one wire motor... I have the final re write of my simple theory of cause and effect. Charge and discharge. to cause a spark..

[@MrBademy]

bro why dont you try putting some of the electricity generated at the bottom to generate a bit heat and a plug to control it , so you will create greater difference when in cold weather, it would be interesting if the efficiency will go up and generate more power

[@hanhbuisy8045]

Well 2.6V is so much for room temperature. As mine between 25 and 60 oC, but only 0.3V.

[@PeterMilanovski]

Now do it again but this time use more Peltier devices... And possibly more super capacitors or some sort of lithium battery... Maybe an extra led or two.... I personally would have used a bridge rectifier to auto route the correct polarity... And a DC to DC Stepdown converter... And a dusk till Dawn switch to turn on the LEDs only at night, this will give time for a storage device to charge..... Also allowing the top of your device to see some direct sunlight would speed up the charge process... This could turn out to be much better than those cheap solar garden lights..... Unless you use a resistor in the bottom via a diode and a small but cheap solar panel, something a bit larger than what is used in those solar garden lights to speed up the thermal uptake of the thermal mass inside? When in heating mode, thermal energy will be coming in through the top via the peltiers and getting a boost from the bottom... Night's are usually longer and cooler and thus able to spend more time getting rid of the stored energy via the peltiers! I just might have to give this a try.... I had a similar idea where I use a copper pipe which is sealed with a few drops of water in it and then pull a vacuum on it, the thermal transfer from one end of the copper pipe in this setup is beyond anything else! Weld a plate to one end large enough to take a few peltiers with a black heatsink on top and then bury the other end deep in the ground! Daytime direct sunlight would send that energy into the ground and release it overnight..... It's like taking advantage of the ocean tide's..... Hmmmm ideas for future projects.....

[@Jkauppa]

works in the cold air too

[@Jkauppa]

better with a compressor + heat pump + cooler

[@Jkauppa]

simple water vaporization compressed heat transfer

[@Jkauppa]

also keeps the temperature of the water/steam/peltier at max 100C, no melting/breaking

[@Jkauppa]

nice passive energy

[@Jkauppa]

try with CaO + water heat storage

[@FastKnob]

From different surface heat

[@baraBober]

Use ASA instead of ABS. Similar properties, but no smell

[@bobbylong4443]

❤❤ wow😊