Why Solid State Might Save The Combustion Engine

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

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[@marsfreelander5969]

i see problems with this and i will list them below 1 overheating of solar panels 2 difficulty to start in winter 3 fouling of system with impure fuel 4 risk of exploding/out of control burning with damage 5 HOW DO YOU TURN OFF MOLTEN SODIUM

[@HWKier]

I'm old enough to have lived through the era of the disposable blade, single and double-blade razors. My modern, multi-blade is much better. It lasts for months. Going back to the old way seems to me to be a scam. We have gone beyond disposable blades. Let's not go back.

[@MrMonkeybat]

@@marsfreelander5969 1 Gallium arsenide is the semiconductor that works best at high temperatures, and is protected by an infrared mirror and likely a vacuum gap. The back side could also be cooled by the incoming air. 2 Since when do bunsen burners and gas ovens have trouble starting in winter? This will much more reliably start in cold weather than a piston engine, and can help warm the batteries in a hybrid vehicle. 3 A modern burner combusts fuel much more completely and cleanly than the explosions in a piston engine, there is a constant flow with no moving parts in the way. A piston engine is much more vulnerable to fouling from impure fuel. 4 No more so than any other vehicle with a fuel tank. 5 Like a sodium vapor lamp it is likely contained in a chamber. When you turn off the burner it cools down.

[@LoanwordEggcorn]

8:15 No there's not only two possibilities. The salt is inside a double walled, sealed sapphire tube. This is an interesting invention, BUT WE NEED TO STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS, AND HYDROGEN AT THIS POINT IS A BORDERLINE SCAM. 14:39 The waste heat from regular internal combustion engines is too low energy to be used efficiently this way. Thermodynamics.

[@m4rvinmartian]

*You should be embarrassed for posting this video.*

[@u9Nails]

"Solid State Engine" - sounds more exciting words than photovoltaic gas lantern.

[@tigerstallion]

also not an engine until you strap an electric motor or some form of mechanical output to it.

[@mnomadvfx]

Exactly. It's not solid state either. It uses a fuel which means it has a liquid or gas component.

[@rogerbartley2225]

Was going to say Blowtorch Solar Panel, You said it much better 🙂

[@HullioGQ]

I'll wait to see work in real life cause i have seen enough of Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos.

[@amoo1313]

Hmm... interesting. Did you mention the fuel that is used? fossil fuel? or Hydrogen? would it in this case not be easier/ more efficient to use Hydrogen cells?

[@LaMirah]

I'm no photovoltaics specialist, but I worked in a lab at a university where the people next door worked on micro-scale heat exchangers, and one of their projects was related to recovering waste heat from Concentrated Photovoltaic Cells (CPV), a system where a relatively cheap, large Fresnel-type lens diverts sunlight into a relatively expensive, small PV cell. The problem with that is that the cell efficiency was inversely proportional to its temperature, which is why they were trying to match these tiny heat exchangers with the tiny PV cells and use that heat to convert alcohol and plant oil into biodiesel. This engine obviously works at high temperatures. Low-Pressure Sodium Vapor lamps work at about 300°C, and the assembly seems too compact for meaningful insulation, so these cells would be working at high, temperatures, and therefore at lowered efficiencies. I'd wait for independent confirmation of these numbers before believing these are even in the correct order of magnitude.

[@AdamMclardy]

That’s exactly the issue. This would straight up melt these cells

[@drillerdev4624]

My first thought was exactly wether this sodium lamp an cell system could be used to discharge excess heat from traditional PVs (improving their efficency) while at the same time obtaining some more electricity out of it. Obviously your lab roommates were smarter than me, so I guess it wasn't doable/cheap enough.

[@snorttroll4379]

just insulate the photovoltaic cells behind a double window. run cool air through the cell or with a vapour chamber

[@asificam1]

IF they said 15% or 20% I would be drooling. Modern Thermoelectric generator (TEG) modules are at most 5%, some TEG modules claim up to 15%, but when people claim above 50%, I get red flags. Besides, this thing is competing against Thermoelectric generators and maybe fuel cells depending on fuel quality, so it seems like someone is trying to get people to invest into a hole... not my thing.

[@m4rvinmartian]

*I mean... a woman invented this dude. You just spent more time pointing out why it won't work, than she did, to make it "work".* This is so stupid, she had to be a drop out to not know the laws of physics says this is seriously impossible.

[@vjmappy]

99% chance its a scam

[@stuartburns8657]

I'll raise you to 99.9% scam

[@gamingSlasher]

but it sounds so good....

[@NeonNijahn]

It's not even a good one.

[@mj8495]

What my grandfather said about computers... some ideas are before their time 😊

[@JBTeefam]

Yep, you said it, "smoke and mirrors." Will be as 'successful' as Solyndra

[@michaelgimenez4032]

This would work if thermodynamics would go for a coffee break while this is running...

[@bigboydrz]

1:30

[@michaelgimenez4032]

@bigboydrz My comment is still standing even after rewatching from 1:30. That nice 3D animation is not proof of concept and I can wait for the prototype demonstration.

[@gastonpossel]

The exhaust gases carries out energy from the system in 3 forms. 1) Sensible heat, expressed in the temperature of the gases, which the thing will try to recover as much as possible (but no chance to recover fully), 2) Latent heat: any fuel with hydrogen content mixed with air and burned will produce water molecules, and there is significant energy absorbed just in the process of water vaporization (not stored in temperature but in the gaseous state), and this latent heat will be lost unless we have a condenser, 3) Kinetic energy of the outgoing exhaust gases, which could be partially recovered with yet another device, a turbine. I see too many conversions needed to even considering a 60%+ efficiency.

[@mikedunn7795]

Yes,the first thing I thought of when I clicked on it was you would be dealing with the production of hydrocarbon exhaust,ie CO,CO2,etc

[@slo3337]

Where does the heat go? If it is so efficient then the thing would not get hot. But there is a huge flame coming out of one end! I say BS. Total complete BS.

[@jasonsilva9091]

It's solid state I your using heat your byproduct is cooling So there's still 30% of heat As gasoline burns at 1500° and peeks at 3900° so that's a lot of exercises heat now we need exhaust and cooling Also if this is as efficient as they say most likely it will be bought out and crushed

[@sigmacentauri6191]

When a geet reactor is running efficiently its exhaust comes out close to ambient air temperature... soaking up heat to run a process can be done.

[@sznikers]

Its 60% efficient so 40% ends up as waste heat in the form of hot exhaust gases just like in any other combustion engine. I'm not sure what is there that you don't understand...

[@slo3337]

@@sznikers that's not what the picture is showing

[@sznikers]

@@slo3337 video says they get 60% efficiency, animation shows hot exhaust gases (flames) leaving tube shaped device... 100% - 60% = 40% here are your flames

[@WileHeCoyote]

I've been trying to conceive of an efficient "fuel into electricity" system for years, so I am also VERY skeptical that you can convert the energy twice and get even close to 80% efficiency. But I hope I'm wrong! I'd love an electric gas motorcycle that can go 1000miles on 4 gallons of gas 😊

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

yes!!! totally agree

[@prophetzarquon]

Watch out for the ultra-hot exhaust cooking everything within a yard of it...

[@heartflame503]

@@prophetzarquon there is a heat exchanger at the flamey end .. so the gas coming out will be cooler than your room heater.

[@prophetzarquon]

@@heartflame503 Heat exchanger _to where?_ It dumps it all upward?

[@heartflame503]

@@prophetzarquon it puts the heat back into the sodium to convert it into light and thus electricity.

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Solid state combustion engine just sounds like a fuel cell with extra steps

[@ticthak]

BUT- nearly as high efficiency with more robust components, since there aren't currently any solid-state membrane fuel cell designs of large size.

[@anydaynow01]

Sounds like it is better tuned, more efficient, produces more useful higher gradient waste heat, and doesn't have the headache of storing and transporting H2.

[@anydaynow01]

@@ticthak Yep and the control systems should be much simpler too so maintenance would a lot less with a longer reactor/generator life. This is quite interesting actually. Use excess renewables to create stored chemical energy, the burn that energy in the reactor for emergencies/peak shaving and seasonal use. I hope they can get it to work at an industrial scale!

[@AmaroqStarwind]

@@anydaynow01 Fuel cells can be made for multiple fuel types

[@geemy9675]

but actually has zero similarity because there is no chemical reaction besides the combustion that produces heat. fuel > heat > light > electricity VS fuel > electricity. I don't know how the plan to extract so much heat from combustion gases though near needs to move from the gas to the sodium, so the exhaust gases temperature will be above sodium vapor temperature (260°C/533K) if you want to extract lets say 90% heat you need to have a heat source about ~5000 C/K. It sounds like using exhaust gases in a hybrid car would hardly produce any sodium vapor or only with extremely low efficiency

[@LloydGM]

Heh, I've been using a Henson razor for a couple years now and I can't begin to tell you how great it is. I have very sensitive facial skin and yet this is the only razor that hasn't ever caused a nick, burn, or ingrown hair...unlike the many multi-bladed razors I've tried over the last 4 decades. This also shaves closer than the electrics I've used. And because the blades are simple, plain safety blades, I haven't even burned through $1 worth of blades yet. Consider just the blade cost alone: 2 cents vs. $5 for current 5-bladed name-brand razor cartridges (which add tons of landfill waste per year, btw). I've been a happy subscriber to your channel for a long time, and promoting Henson shavers just makes it that much better...thanks!

[@junkerzn7312]

So many issues with this thing I don't even know where to start. The pollution alone would be extremely difficult to control. It reminds me of cheap Chinese diesel heaters, actually. * Pollution. There is no way to fully burn the fuel across a swath of power levels. They might be able to fully burn the fuel at a particular power level. * Backpressure from dealing with exhaust products to remove unwanted byproducts. * Efficiency of 60% with a hot exhaust? Not even possible. And 80% combined-cycle? I don't think that's possible either. * The high temperature of the system will greatly shorten the equipment lifespan, let alone the solar cells. * Build-up of byproducts on heat exchanger surfaces. * Multiple conversion steps... another nail in the "efficiency" coffin. The biggest red flag is having multiple conversion steps (fuel to heat, heat to light, light to cell, cell to electricity) and still claiming extreme efficiencies. That gets into "sell me the Brooklyn bridge" territory. I don't think this thing is real. -Matt

[@loneIyboy15]

You forgot the biggest one: Even if the system works, burning gasoline is the worst way to heat table salt. Solar Concentrators, geothermal, nuclear, and even standard power plants would be better served integrating this than cars.

[@mnntropy5615]

Similar to my first thought: How hot do those EV cells get exactly? And how efficient are they at that temperature and how long do they last at that temperature. Too many steps and energy conversions. Buildup of byproducts reduces efficiency fast. I know, for the fuel that is not burned in the first combustion, we could just add an afterburner for additional thrust out of the exhaust. Hey, it works for military jets, so why not here.

[@slom2529]

Jet car lmao

[@MrMonkeybat]

A modern burner for an external combustion engine consumes fuel much more completely and cleanly than the explosions in an internal combustion piston engine. A generator for a plug in battery hybrid vehicle does not need a variable power output.

[@mitchellcouchman1444]

As soon as I heard the efficiency figure I was like this is BS. Any basic understanding of how complex a jet engine is and you just laugh. You can't just have, "combustion", you need a compressor or to used a compressed oxidant (a rocket). The compressor alone robs more energy than he says will be lost in the full cycle. Lastly how on earth will you cool it enough for most of the energy to not be lost as heat?

[@jackfrost2978]

That finish was great. Trying to efficiently use the remaining energy. Creating symbiotic engines.

[@nacoran]

I woke up in the middle of the night once with an idea for using waste heat. I googled, and unfortunately, someone had beat me to it (at least in a lab setting, I found a paper on it). Basically you use piezoelectric fins as a radiator, turning the movement of heat from the heat source to the ambient air to generate electricity. Basically it's the same technology that we use to turn thermostats on and off scaled up. Probably would add a lot of weight, so might not be worth it for cars and such, but another way to deal with converting waste heat to electricity.

[@jackfrost2978]

@@nacoran We often make things overly complex. This video is a good example of trying to keep it simple. i agree that it is very easy to overcomplicate something to the point of any potential benefits being nullified. It seems to me that we are not used to thinking of building simple, efficient, synergetic systems. In reality. Most of our systems are synergetic. In many cases we only go as far as we need to go to get a system to work. Then we get used to working within that system instead of looking at ways to make large scale changes. This seems to be partly the problem of industry.

[@EconAtheist]

Formula 1 cars have energy recovery systems (ERS) and been doing this sort of thing for at least a handful of years now. Imperfectly of course but they're still pretty amazing relative to 'no ERS'.

[@Berkana]

I knew Danielle when she was doing her prior clean tech start-up, LightSail (grid scale energy storage). Unfortunately LightSail didn't beat out the battery tech that hit the market, and they folded. I think her use of "LightCell" as a trade name is a riff off of her old company's name.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

wow that's amazing, what are the odds!

[@KhattaRapidus]

@@TwoBitDaVinci ikr... not scammy at all

[@costrio]

A mechanical typewriter of old is a pleasure to see, in operation. It got replaced by word processing. Old typewriters are mostly collector's items, now, I think. If replaced, eventually, the beautiful designs of modern IC engines will still be appreciated by collectors and historians as works of art, IMO. (I'm not talking overnight, though. ;-)

[@andrewm6340]

Very understandable technical explanation (I'm a chemist): concise, and hitting a number of related topics to enable me as a viewer/listener to form an opinion! Thank you!

[@antoinepageau8336]

The only legit science in this episode is the shaver.

[@BillHustonPodcast]

Haha! Only the advert here is truthful! 😂😂😂 💯%

[@greghelton4668]

Actually the idea itself is solid, pun unintended. The fuel source would have to be really clean to avoid soot buildup. There might be applications where such a pin energy source to convert fuel to electricity is useful. Ships, big rigs, planes, etc.

[@MrLardobutt]

those are legit, i want to get one of those, but damn they're expensive, but built to last

[@loneIyboy15]

@@greghelton4668 If the idea works, then burning stuff to make electricity would still be the least efficient way of using it. Because at that point, really anything that heats up the salt is enough. And at that point, you may as well use a solar concentrator or something.

[@Sekir80]

@@loneIyboy15 And said solar concentrator would be running on "free" energy, which is way better than using a fuel. But that's stationary power generation. This one is intended to move things, I guess.

[@SilverTreasures]

I feel like we’re going in circles. Burning something to make energy from a solar panel to charge something … uhhh

[@YoutubeWatcher264]

And claiming it is at most 80%. LOL

[@snake10566]

@@KZbinWatcher264 That's my issue. There are many steps here, each with losses.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

For 10 kw per gram? (It looked like they listed under 4 liters in a graph. So volumetric is great unlike Hydrogen) That is on par with the best therotical batteries max potential! Lithium Air is said to be able to hold 12,300 watts per KG. So yeah. That is outstanding! I've already said TPV cells are the future. Or a part of it. For some applications. MIT just made some that capture heat at 2,000 celius, get better with more heat, and have more than 45% effiency. Basically the same as our best turbines! I say the future as in... The future is TPV cells plus nuclear or in ten years fusion! Sadly... I am super skeptical. Feel like the DoD would be on top of this. Just use sapphire... Oh yeah that is a great choice. So plentiful. Pretty cool if true, and I bet a ton of applications could benefit from this. TPV cells need more research. We waste so much heat, and potential energy. Having a part that captures that into electricity with no moving parts is a game changer for at least industrial purposes.

[@2ndfloorsongs]

You left out the part where it burns green methane from whales.

[@FLPhotoCatcher]

@@dianapennepacker6854 Actually, an ideal use case would be to power a house using wood as fuel, and use the waste heat to heat the house in cold weather, and heat water in all weather.

[@bigbasil1908]

A pulse jet engine is a solid state internal combustion engine.

[@Sekir80]

I have WW2 vibes. :D

[@jef_3006]

Jets (and rockets for that matter) are not internal combustion engines. One side of the engine is open, so the combustion isn't internal

[@pilotusa]

Pulse jets are not solid state since they have moving parts (the valve flaps which cause the "buzz" in buzz bombs). A ram jet is solid state.

[@sockmonkey6666]

@@pilotusa Depends on the type of pulse jet. The Lockwood types have no moving parts.

[@WarrenLacefield]

@@jef_3006 Yes, but this distinction seems almost academic nowadays. A fireplace is where combustion occurs; your chimney flue is where the exhaust goes. Is your furnace a jet or an "internal" combustion engine? Or are neither "engines"? (Producing heat is a form of "work" or is only force/motion "work?") In a rocket, combustion occurs in the nozzle to accelerate the exhaust for thrust as it leaves the nozzle. In an ICE car, the values are simply little doors that open and close for inlet air followed by exhaust. Actually more of a "digital" or step-by-step combustion/exhaust cycle rather than a more analog/continuous flow-controlled system.

[@gregparrott]

I like this format - Both describe new concepts created by others, AND extrapolate on the concept and provide a technical rationale for why the extrapolation may be plausible.

[@supermario469]

Wow your idea at the end is good. I'm all for anything that lets me keep my ICE.

[@anydaynow01]

Combining this with a modern Sterling engine of some kind (like Karno), to make electric power directly from the waste heat would really squeeze the extra efficiency out of it.

[@leerman22]

It looks like a recouperator to preheat the intake air would be better, if this works that is. Thought you can only get the sodium yellow through electric discharge not just by heating it up.

[@RaptorNX01]

the problem i've seen across videos dealing with both sterling engines, and also peltier related devices is that there seem to be a loss of efficiency over time. its hard to prevent the temperature from equalizing. and since both really require a large temperature difference on both sides of the device it ends up getting less and less efficient the longer it runs.

[@hollismccray3297]

Could this work? My sliver of engineering knowledge says 'Maybe.' But I'm really doubting their claimed efficiency numbers. Build one, Let someone else test it, and I'll believe it.

[@WolfeSaber]

That's what time is.

[@RockSolitude]

Local man discovers engineering for the first time. No, shit sherlock. This is just a concept right now.

[@m4rvinmartian]

No dude. A woman invented it, lol. This is so stupid.

[@sheilaolfieway1885]

the whole hishschool dropout thing sounds like one of those 'fake miracle' stories they use for scams.

[@TheAnachronist]

This video overstates what Lightcell themselves claim as far as efficiency, which is frustrating. The founder of the company, @danielle_fong, tried commenting to set the record straight, but for some reason the KZbin algorithm has hid here reply.

[@maxpeterson8616]

So you get an animation and an explanation. Still seems sus to me. Thermal efficiency claims are unbelievably high. Extraordinary claims...yadayadayada.

[@TheSpadre]

The best video of yours I've watched. This should give us all hope for new technologies becoming a part of the future.

[@Arexodius]

I like the idea you pitched at the end there - combining a regular old ICE with the "light cell" - which got me thinking a little. And I think I've come up with a really efficient combined system. Imagine this: 1) You have a solid, time-proven, fully balanced and port polished engine block of choice (let's do a V8) with Speed of Air pistons (seriously, look them up! Just do it!!!), 2) and instead of a traditional starter + alternator combination (which puts a toll on rotating the crankshaft just to charge the battery), you hook a 48-or-higher volt starter-generator electric motor to the crankshaft either directly or indirectly (kinda like RAM's very underrated e-Torque system which you should totally research if you haven't), 3) and after the exhaust manifold(s) you incorporate however many light cells that would correspond to the number of manifolds serving as both heat re-capture devices and mufflers, and you use primarily the light cells to generate electricity to juice up a super-capacitor-bank-equipped car battery (look up super capacitor banks), and use the excess electricity to put torque to the crankshaft using the starter-generator motor - which can also be used for regenerative engine breaking, RPM-matching for super smooth gear shifts, super smooth start-and-stop function along with takeoff torque boost (all of which RAM's e-Torque system already does) - creating a proper hybrid solution, and maybe even configure the light cells to work as catalytic converters while you're at it, just for good measure, or at least put cats in front of them to make the most of it. Running turbos would also really benefit this combined solution as it creates higher EGT's, which would just be harnessed by the light cells. Most of these solutions are already proven technologies that are already in use in various different areas, just not combined together in a factory produced vehicle. RAM's e-Torque system comes the closest, but the electric motor they use doesn't generate enough juice to provide additional torque over the whole RPM range, which only makes it a so called mild hybrid system. But the concept is great, especially if you where to harness the excess heat that's usually wasted out the tail pipe to produce "excess" electricity. All of these technologies put together and tuned in properly would first of all bump up the fuel economy by *_at least_* 50%. And thanks to the Speed of Air pistons you would also increase power and torque from normal combustion by 5-15% with the biggest increase in the low RPM's which is where it matters the most. But you would also *_DRAMATICALLY_* reduce the amount of unburnt fuel, soot and other harmful emissions, which greatly extends the lifespan of the engine oil and the engine itself, and *_completely_* nullifies the point of an EGR (which just kills engines prematurely anyway). And if you have catalytic converters you will have all the exhaust cleaning you would ever need for either gasoline or diesel engines. DPF's would also be moot at that point, along with DEF. That's how powerful just the Speed of Air piston upgrade is by itself. You seriously need to look those things up if you haven't! They truly are revolutionary! I believe that even a crude version of this light cell technology would make a big difference for any vehicle using an ICE, especially combined with some sort of starter-generator motor. The super capacitor bank would *_greatly_* extend the lifespan of whatever battery you couple that with, combining the benefits of readily available quick burst power with a gentler slow paced charging current to greatly reduce stress to the battery. And the starter-generator motor solution picks up the slack in a lot of areas to make it a really smooth driving, smooth shifting, efficient and plenty powerful hybrid platform, especially aided by that light cell solution. Take it for what it is, but I truly believe in a combined solution like the one I describe. A fun tidbit in all this: The germans are developing a water injection system that scavenges water vapor from exhaust gas *_and_* condensation from A/C systems to create a self-filling water injection system. Really clever if you ask me! Properly configured water-methanol/ethanol (or just water) injection systems have some really interesting benefits to both gas and diesel ICE's that you should look up if you haven't. Especially a non-methanol type system is actually really safe. It basically has no downsides, other than the fact that you occasionally need to refill the water tank such a system uses with distilled water. And that's what the germans are currently working around to eliminate as well.

[@katanaridingremy]

Thank you for providing enough details to know that this is likely a pipe dream. Seems like too much energy would be lost between them different energy exchanges. I’ll wait for the more dense batteries

[@AaronSchwarz42]

catalytic converters already get 1000 centigrade hot, so a large one built with quarts encapsulated sodium low pressure lamps & tuned band-cap matched photovoltaics could convert exhaust heat energy into HEV traction battery charging while the engine is on, radically improving overall system efficiency or radically lowering fuel consumption

[@sammy5576]

really good idea. the trouble is... all the light from the inside is lost, and you can only collect light from the edge, you need to heat the sodium without losing it,

[@cyberGEK]

ENGLISH PRO TIP: Quartz is a crystalline mineral.💎 Quarts are how you buy Milk, 🐮 or in Australia, beer 🍺 😃

[@sammy5576]

@@cyberGEK what dose English have to do with quatz?

[@zaakoc]

That's still to cool to cause sodium to incandescence .

[@theairstig9164]

Cooling an exhaust stream below 100C means liquid water will come out the end not water vapour. I’m not going to explain how much of a problem that is

[@mikeyned690]

I was not too impressed with the "Light Cell" until the end of the video when you brilliantly combined it with a normal piston based internal combustion engine. The problem might be in getting a high enough temperature from the exhaust to, more or less, fluoresce the sodium. Anyone interested in working on the idea might want to try an old school automotive mechanics tool called a "vortex tube" to provide an incredibly high temperature air flow to heat the sodium.

[@CUBETechie]

Can't the vortextube be used directly After the Gas turbine exhaust?

[@mikeyned690]

@@CUBETechie Anyplace you want to separate hot and cool air that is pressurized a vortex tube is the simple way to go but the tube in this application may need to be made with ceramics because of much higher temps than standard mechanics compressed shop air. mIKEY

[@CHIEF_420]

@ExxonMobil ⛽️🧂

[@MrMonkeybat]

Electric hybrid cars need small efficient generators as range extenders so they can have small batteries for day to day driving without range anxiety. Attaching it to a big clunky piston engine would defeat the point. Your typical car engine sends about a third of its energy out the radiator a third out the exhaust pipe and a third to the wheels. If the predictions are right tis will be more effiecient by itself.

[@slom2529]

Or you know we could scrap the car idea and go for trains, which if we’re talking electric trains, can be at least 100 times efficient as car travel per person.

[@ivandhotmanvilliers3361]

Even with lower efficiency this is still a practical technology, the no moving parts and light weight is a big plus. Thanks for the Mesodyne link

[@0ii076]

I love this innovation, thank you so much for highlighting it!

[@TheAnachronist]

This is real. The principle is well established. But you’re overstating what they claim for efficiency. They don’t claim to be that efficient. @danielle_fong, the founder, made a comment here, but it’s not showing up for some reason.

[@jjptech]

If the comment was made and deleted… I will immediately unsubscribe and flag this channel. I hope we can find out

[@TheAnachronist]

@@jjptech I suspect it was an algorithm mistake, not intentional

[@arduinoguru7233]

I't looks like scam shtty video, he just proved nothing just numbers out of his A, anyway all principle he mentioned are already tested on real life scenario, they all didn't beat the internal combustion engine, what a failure to the science.

[@markstephenson6952]

I see the claim that the engine produces 10kW with ONLY 4L of fuel. Hmmmm. A typical genset on a boat produces 1 kW per 1/3L of diesel. That is 12 kW/4L

[@antoinepageau8336]

Propane camping light check, solar panel check, save the planet, done 😂

[@luisrubalcava6331]

China just recently released solid state battery EVs for sale so the US government decided to quadruple tariffs on EVs

[@Rhiawhyn]

@@luisrubalcava6331 Citation needed.

[@testboga5991]

You forgot the table salt

[@antoinepageau8336]

@@testboga5991Shoot, I knew i was forgetting something.

[@marilynlucas5128]

I guess. A propane tank to light up cerium oxide mantle and then use the light to generate electricity using a solar panel?

[@grkuntzmd]

You can install this engine in a rear-engine design and completely eliminate the problem of other people tailgating you.

[@Psrj-ad]

they would need to keep the solar cells cool too. The temprature of a solar cell greatly effects its efficiancy and at that power density they would definitely need an active cooling solution.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

great point

[@benbriedis]

Maybe flow the input fuel and/or air along the back of the cells?

[@javakhtar5339]

@@TwoBitDaVinci a Solution to cooling would be to use a clear liquid with the same refractive index of the glass and use a regular radiator and fan setup. Maybe putting it between the PV cell and the lamp with a small vacuum between the lamp and the liquid (in another tube) so as not to cool the lamp

[@adr2t]

Well in theory, because it would be able to use most of the light coming and there is less over all IR light - they would stay cooler than your sun driven panels would.

[@NikaHollywood]

I love the idea right at the end of the video. How about using the exhaust heat to run an electric turbo charger!

[@thudang3039]

Interesting; thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[@byronwatkins2565]

pn junctions are inherently thin so that most of the light passes through without exciting electron-hole pairs. The bottom material is mostly reflective so that the light passes back through and generates more electricity. The reflection coefficient is 90% or so. If the reflected light excites more sodium, then a little less than half is emitted toward the photocell again. The rest is absorbed by the heat exchanger surface and converted back to heat. This (sufficiently) hot surface does excite sodium, but it also emits significant blackbody radiation to be radiated away and to heat up the photocells and reduce their efficiency.

[@mitchellcouchman1444]

Plus all the exhaust heat loss and compressor losses (is not mentioned but is required as this is functionally a jet engine)

[@simontillson482]

Very true. You could channel the incoming air stream through heat exchanger fins on the back of the PV cells to keep them cooler though, and it would also act as a preheater for the air. Also, these newer PV absorber semiconductors have amazing absorption coefficients - unlike silicon which needs 150 micrometers to absorb most of the light, germanium carbide only needs to be 15 micrometers thick. They will get really hot though, even with cooling, so like others, I really doubt these efficiency figures.

[@zolitakacs6306]

Heat is accelerating the aging proccess of pv-panels. Ageing is lowering the efficiency through lifetime exponentialy and the heat lowers the lifetime.

[@nacoran]

I'd think the more efficient you got the conversion the less that would be an issue... you are converting the heat to light, then converting the light to electricity. The more efficiently you do that the less waste heat you have, and on a moving vehicle you could add some air cooling. I think you're right though. Managing that heat is going to be critical. I really didn't get an idea of the scale on this... I know that, with the exception of some low speed concept vehicles you can't power a car with solar panels for continuous travel (day/night issues aside). This is 4x as efficient as regular solar cells... but you'd still need pretty significant surface area for the cells, although obviously you can fold them in ways you can't fold a panel you want to catch the sun.

[@mitchellcouchman1444]

@@nacoran Sodium will not convert all its energy to light, that's a pipe dream, it will get hot

[@wanderingbufoon]

fun tangent fact: "this orange light is the superior green + blue screen CGI replacement that Disney used back in the old times where CGIs weren't a thing.

[@VPWedding]

That’s right. That specific frequency of yellow is so narrow that you can filter it out without changing any of the other colors in the shot. So one strip of film would see the yellow as white, while another would see it as black. And that is how the great mattes for Marry Poppins worked.

[@RaptorNX01]

i think thats why i got recommended this video. i had just watched steven mould's black flame video, and had previously watched corridor crew's video on it.

[@francoisbonnin389]

First of all, thank you for your videos. They are extremely interesting, I really like them. Regarding your idea about enhancing the yield of a reciprocating engine heating sodium until it glows, consider capturing heat at the exhaust pipe level rather than the combustion chamber. This approach avoids diminishing the mechanical energy of expanding gasses. High-performance engines, especially those with high RPMs or turbocharging, have exhaust pipes that get extremely hot, sometimes glowing red. By utilizing this waste heat, you can harness additional energy without compromising engine performance. Just a thought.

[@arturduchene]

Very intriguing and thought provoking. Thanks for sharing and explaining this. I’m always blown away by what I learn from you.

[@rebokfleetfoot]

perhaps i'm missing something, but i don't see a recent innovation here, they are lighting a candle next to a solar panel?

[@nuclearmedicineman6270]

Yea, but.. it's a really bright candle. Surely nobody's ever thought of that.

[@Petriiik]

it is the small bandgap PVs, which with use of monochromatic lightsource achieve high efficiency.

[@WolfeSaber]

With the panel designed to work with the light coming from the burning fuel.

[@rebokfleetfoot]

@@WolfeSaber ya, perhaps the way they are optimizing the waveform is an advancement

[@nacoran]

Yes, but they are tuning both the light and the solar panel to work better with each other.

[@christmassnow3465]

Now I understood the context of bandgap and photoelectric energy. What if we made photovoltaic cells (for roofs, not light cells) with multiple layers of photoelectric materials, each having its own bandgap? The layers would be thin so unused light can be captured by the layer below with the corresponding bandgap. The layers would be laid on a mirrored surface, so light reaching the mirror is reflected again towards the different layers and hence increase efficiency.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

yeah, that would be a multi junction cell! Currently the challenge is to allow unabsorbed light to pass through higher layers to lower ones... but yes multi junction cells will eventualy be a thing, and can increase efficiency of solar to north of 40% 2x what we have now!

[@larsjrgensen5975]

For size constraints this could be a good idea, but every layer is adding cost, for example 5 layers stacked with 5 different bandgaps, could cost the same as 5 normal panels we use today. The multi layer solar cell record is 47-48% efficiency, so only around twice as good as a normal solar cell, but maybe 5 times as expensive to produce depending on how many layers used. The normal cells we use today would still be much more efficient $/watt power then multi layer solar panels.

[@zaakoc]

@@TwoBitDaVinci Watched this Idea being implemented over the years. Multi layer cells are the future of solar cells. Love your channel!

[@zaakoc]

@@larsjrgensen5975 As it's adopted the cost of multi layer cells will drop.

[@larsjrgensen5975]

@@zaakoc Multi layered cells are multiple cells stacked on top of each other. Any fabrication breakthrough of the cells would apply to normal 1 layer cells too. The price difference between 1 layer and multi layer should stay roughly the same no matter how many breakthroughs.

[@Petriiik]

but about which temperatures are we talking about? what is the efficiency of the thermo-photo conversion at different tenperatures?

[@orionbetelgeuse1937]

most of the energy will be radiated as infrared.

[@Petriiik]

I read through an wiki article about TPV. Now I think this is just a scam for investors.

[@teardowndan5364]

@@orionbetelgeuse1937Radiated where? A real implementation of this thing would have the sodium inside an insulated mirror and we do know how to make mirrors for specific wavelengths, practically no IR would get out. Exhaust gasses would also go through a heat exchanger with incoming combustion air to achieve 95+% heating efficiency like a condensing furnace. Intake air can also be routed around the device to pick up any heat that got through insulation. Efficiently heating sodium to incandescence and keeping it there is effectively a 20+ years old solved problem. Seems to me like it is all about how cost-effective, efficient and durable the sodium-PV part of the process actually is.

[@orionbetelgeuse1937]

@@teardowndan5364 a heated thing radiates energy at various wavelenghts from infrared to visible light. For instance a lightbulb has the filament made from tungsten but the radiation produced is not monochromatic just on the spectral lines of the tungsten. the same will happen with the glass tube and the sodium. It will produce some yellow light but also a lot of infrared. All the energy radiated at wavelenghts bigger than the yellow light for which the panel is tuned is lost because it cannot be captured and the light with shorter wavelengths will be captured but with losses heating the panel.

[@wjspade]

The main issue I see with your plan of adding this setup to an existing ICE, is that the exhaust temps aren’t high enough to boil the salt. Exhaust headers can reach 1600° after a hard drive. NaCl boils at 2669°F, so you’d most likely have to reintroduce fuel after the header to heat it back up enough to make the light cell function.

[@anthonydavinci7985]

Again another Great show/presentation /Analysis . Rick ,Thanks so very Much.

[@snapo1750]

I realy enjoyed the new style... finaly you start to dig into those projects and not only read the advertisements they make... this explanation was perfect...

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

so glad to hear it!!!! trust me its a process, one i work on constantly, and your feedback means a lot. thank you!

[@chriseaton1525]

If this is actually as advertised, a 1 gal size lawn mower should be available for christmas.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

lol yeah... somehow I doubt it but its just great to see that research and engineering is being done on all sorts of possibilities

[@CorkyMcButterpants]

@@TwoBitDaVinci_"research and engineering"_ hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[@sebbes333]

1:40 This falls apart with the knowledge that photovoltaic cells works SIGNIFICANTLY better when cold, not hot (thermo).

[@Rem_NL]

I think the key to making this work is transparent solar cells. Seems that with germanium you can stack multiple layers on top of each other, that could greatly increase the efficiency in a cilinder, and maybe cap it off with a mirror too.

[@ShaunVillafana]

I like how for this episode you went more to the drawingboard giving your own ideas to the mix

[@anthonycarbone3826]

Fascinating approach and with the right material and engineering it looks doable. The problems are always in the details and the engineering tolerances and efficiencies.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

perfectly said and I couldn't agree more!

[@jackoneil3933]

Thanks for covering this Ricky. As micro-turbine gas-electric generators already are capable of about 70% efficiency, are very compact and simple, why not use them instead combustion photovoltaics? In regards to your concept of photovoltaic ICE exhaust power recovery, I'm thinking that if you were able to recover 50% of the waste energy from an ICE exhaust using photovoltaic generator, you would be recovering about 15% of the total engine thermal losses. Having worked with large Exhaust heat exchangers (stack robbers) to capture waste exhaust heat, but due exhaust restriction and back-pressure reducing engine power, we typically only recovered about 30% of exhaust heat. If similar was the case with photovoltaic recovery, you would only be recovering about 15% of the waste energy in the exhaust stream, and something like a exhaust power recovery microturbine, adapted from a turbo-charger to drive an electric generator might be as efficient and less expensive. BTW: Back in the 80's when I was working for in the Oil and Gas Industry and dealing with HPS and Mulit-Vapor lighting systems, the thought of using high temperature combustion gas to produce combustion based lighting using a multi-vapor tubes for remote off-grid locations occurred to me. I mentioned it to some engineering colleagues, and we estimated the efficiency could be considerably higher than electrically excited tubes but the maintenance, cost and complexities of producing such a system would likely be practical and affordable, plus having combustion sources in flammable environments is not suitable.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

great insights Jack, that's interesting especially with your background... cheers!

[@moswitch1]

The passion and effort you put into your videos is very admirable!

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

I appreciate that!

[@pokeynewsome2804]

Dude came at this like i do with all new tech, asking is this real or more smoke and mirrors. Great video!

[@m4r00123]

I could see it being used as a generator in a hybrid configuration using waste heat from standard internal combustion engine but having it as a standalone power unit doesn't seem viable.

[@djp1234]

It's another pipe dream that we'll never hear about again.

[@kirkwagner461]

The problem, assuming the claims are valid, is that automotive engines have highly variable power needs. This system seems likely to be tuned to a very specific power output level to achieve its very high efficiency. That is the opposite of what a car needs. At best, in a car, is you use this as a means of recharging a depleted battery array. At that point, this power system is in competition with fixed point public utilities. So instead of comparing its efficiency to a cars IC engine, you should be comparing it to the efficiency of grid scale coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants.

[@nathanbanks2354]

A range extender for an electric car, plane or boat is still quite useful.

[@MrMonkeybat]

Most EVs only use a fraction of their range each day there batteries are oversized for range anxiety and those odd trips. A small compact efficient lightweight generator like this would be great range extender for those odd trips so the battery can be much smaller lightweight increasing maneuverability, efficiency and reducing the cost of the electric vehicle without lugging round a heavy complex piston generator like current hybrids do. As the generator in such a plug in hybrid is just used to recharge the battery it does not need to be capable of variable loads at all.

[@mitchellcouchman1444]

Problem is you're assuming the claims are valid, they aren't

[@MauroTamm]

Could also be geothermal - all you need is a high temperature for sodium. Bury the sodium PV cells in the mantle, instead of steam generators. But current ones slso need cooling and thermal management. No pv cell can just perfectly function at high temp long term.

[@zaakoc]

Love the idea. The mantal doesn't get nearly hot enough. Maybe another compound that will glow at a lower temp.

[@RaptorNX01]

the point of using sodium is it emits light at only one wavelength. so having a special solar cell that is fine tuned to that specific wavelength increases efficiency. using another compound ruins that.

[@jfrjr7964]

Quartz is also a great way to filtrate bandwidth of light. Not to say it also has a higher melting point than regular glass. Glass is amorphous which makes it ineficiente to some light wavelengths.

[@EXPLORADVEN]

Great Video 👏👏👏 I liked the true self generating hybrid idea mentioned towards the end.

[@BeamRider100]

I don't think exhaust gas from a regular engine would be hot enough to melt salt and make it glow bright. You definitely raised many interesting points that got us all thinking about it.

[@davissmith5670]

If it were a diesel it could work exhaust gas temperatures can get up and past 600 degrees Celsius though that would be bad for the engine to run that hot if you only need a bit more than 300 degrees I think a diesel engine could sustain it especially with added exhaust insulation

[@slowbro1337]

70-80% efficiency... I will only believe it when I see it. Efficiency that high has me doubting its efficacy hard

[@KrishnaKumar-ro3pz]

The last bit was brilliant actually.

[@tonydamiani8029]

You have awesome content. Thanks for producing it.

[@OlegGolubev_yolo]

whole chain sounds extremeley stupid to be efficienty more than 0.3%

[@willabyuberton818]

It takes a long, long time to make a reputation, and apparently 15:13 to break it.

[@FrancescMuro]

Weichai in China is building Diesel truck engines with over 53% thermal efficiency (World record)

[@JohnDir-xw3hf]

I don't trust China. They lie too much.

[@H0mework]

Very interesting!

[@jimj2683]

I heard that too, but I will not believe it before I seen external independent tests. If it is true it will come to all boats and trucks near you soon.

[@leerman22]

It also asexually reproduces I bet.

[@nathanbanks2354]

This isn't far-fetched, since truck-sized Diesel engines are already 40% efficient. You could add a steam engine to convert a little waste heat back into more energy or squirt water into the cylinders. I haven't looked at what they're doing.

[@zippytechnologies]

As a long time owner of a Hyundai Sonata hybrid (before they got cheap) I've been trying a hundred ways to increase range and efficiency. Capturing the heat from engine exhaust just makes sense. Build an adapter that can transfer the heat from engine exhaust and stand up to the environment of a car engine or exhaust system and a way to store the extra energy then you got my vote. Need a car to test it on?

[@ScottJoplin-r9b]

Interesting video. I had a crazy idea while watching this: Suppose there was a jet-engine-like ram-jet, which drove a turbine that in turn powered a generator. Maybe too many steps, but just a thought ...

[@MojoRevelation]

There's no way in hell they will work with any efficiency. Lighting a candle and then trying to gather a miniscule amount of light energy with a solar panel is the stupidest way to do it.

[@BillMitchell-lm8dg]

The effieciency lies in matching the band gap of the photovoltaic cell to the narrow yellow emission band (spectral line) of the hot sodium. That is where Danielle Fong, et al., thought outside the box.

[@Georgewilliamherbert]

Forget the candles. How much power is going through a car engine, jet aircraft engine, or large rocket engine like SpaceX Raptor? Raptor is around 8 gigawatts. If the energy conversion efficiency is the same 80% quoted earlier then that’s 6.4 gigawatts of electricity. California is using 19 gigawatts right as I type this, so about 3 Raptors worth of propellant burn is needed (about 310 pounds methane per second per Raptor, so around 900-1,000 pounds per second for all of California).

[@johnaweiss]

Dude, why aren't you patenting your inventions? You invented like five things in this video.

[@yourikdean1167]

Do you even know how much it costs to secure a patent?

[@patrickdegenaar9495]

I'm very sceptical that they will achieve that efficiency in practice. But it certainly sounds like a clever approach.

[@solaceofflame]

that idea you pitched at the end was awesome. I think you should hire a team to make it happen.

[@mrbnice7590]

Love the video man, you have a great way of making things easer to describe... well done

[@tomshepherd4901]

Fuel cells work through combustion as well. It's just that the combustion reaction is facilitated by an electron exchange across a dielectric membrane. Recapture of waste heat from fuel cells using Sebeck units improves efficiency. Using thermo-optical conversion through a narrow band material would allow more of the heat to be recaptured using the photoelectric effect. I have a hard time believing the 80% efficiency number, but it is a good idea.

[@sigmacentauri6191]

Ricky! Dude this really fascinates me as someone who has researched Paul Pantone's geet reactor system. I find your idea of adapting the photovoltaic heat engine as a heat recovery concept for a regular combustion engine pretty curious. What would you use the electricity it makes to power? Electric motors? Make Hydrogen to send back into the engine?

[@zachward8228]

I'm actually going to start thinking of a way to incorporate a sodium fuel cell type tube like y'all made into my cars existing intercooler and cooling system. Then you could get rid of your alternator and possibly radiator or intercooler if it's efficient enough. That's an awesome idea and great food for thought!

[@halbrookins3232]

This is totally amazing. Thank you, this gives me hope.

[@litestuffllc7249]

One of the best presentations you've done. It should work fine but the conversion rate is obviously key to it being successful - guess we'll see.

[@LOOGamala]

I like the idea, the key part is getting clean combustion, a combustion chamber with proper mild or flameless combustion woud be key.

[@pauloleksyn1289]

About 20-25 years ago, I can't remember who did it(I want to say Smokey Yunick but I'm not sure). Did an experiment on a 4 cylinder Ford engine where he heats up the F/A mixture to 440 degrees F. This completely dried the mixture allowing much more complete combustion increasing fuel mileage and horsepower exponentially from about 130 HP to about 300 HP. With about half the fuel consumption. I don't know why it was never developed more, but it looked very promising.

[@keithwilliams6007]

The issues with Yunick's "adiabatic engine" were durability of the ceramic/metal seals and emissions. To use an analogy, you can't mass-manufacture an F1 engine for use in non-race-cars.

[@pauloleksyn1289]

@@keithwilliams6007 yeah I remember that was an issue, but maybe after 25 years material science has improved enough to overcome that.

[@noreply5461]

I like the way you think dude (don't know your name, sorry), out of the box, which makes you hyper creative. That is how I think too, not many people do unfortunately.

[@andrewthorby7401]

Like the concept of compounding a heat-light generator with an ICE.

[@ewaf88]

I've got a Henson shaver, and it lives up to all the hype.

[@jefftaylor9305]

Very awesome. Heat to electricity, peltier device. I use it on my hydrogen engine to run the fan to cool it and power lights.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

That's a great idea! Going to do a video on peltier chips

[@Akya2120]

I would not throw the exhaust energy out the back. I would use a regenerator to capture more of the heat and further cool the exhaust gasses. This in turn would require less fuel to reach and maintain operating temperatures. I like your hybrid approach. In theory you could fit them to existing vehicles. Only issue is you can't get the NaCl substrate hotter than the factory exhaust gasses without some sort of heat pump.

[@tristangillis7365]

You ask in the video why one would focus on this idea, rather than battery electric or fuel cells. I think the potential advantage here would be size & weight of the energy source. Hydrogen is light, but requires a huge amount of space to have anything even remotely amounting to useful storage. Batteries are heavy and large. Fuel, in comparison, is extremely useful here. It can be kept extremely small and light, because there's just so much energy available per volume.

[@guestuser2373]

Internal combustion not only wastes heat energy, but it uses some of the compression energy to deal with the wasted heat energy. That heat could be converted to electricity.

[@jimjohnson3609]

Love your explanations, really helps me understand. Thanks fun video.

[@stevearmstrong4561]

You could recover heat being emitted and lost by using thermocouple's in order to convert the potential loss to DC.

[@jshanab42]

I always had plans of making an exhaust manifold covered in thermo-electric modules to charge the plugin in hybrids battery and see how much it wold extend the range. TE's suck so I really liked this solution. (but I do not have any cars that burn fuel any more)

[@sampleoffers1978]

Yes in car there's multiple escaping heat sources that might be possible to recycle back into self charging if the heat can light up a substance, and or infrared spectrum can be used...but stray voltage within the car system might also be exploitable if electrostatic motors are real...Even in a non car design though, 1) polymer should be fed and store heat...2) the heat should radiate infrared energy and a filter on thermophotovoltaic panel should use it, OR the heat should cause polymer to glow in uv spectrum. Panels on roof is too vulnerable to weather/vandalism, but thermal panels are just heat collection so easier. Heat can also be pressurized for improved efficiency...

[@Gwalchgwyn]

The moment you said "photovoltaic", you debunked the efficiency claims by a margin. That was quick. Thanks for saving me the time to watch the rest.

[@tinkerne-round4079]

On the internal combustion engine idea the Catalytic converter creates lots of heat while catalyzing. Using that waste energy would be awesome. Im sure it would be possible to pull the heat from the cooling system and air conditioning and concentrate it too. Imagine how small an internal combustion engine could be if it were 90% efficient having the extra power made into electricity to assist driving the wheels.

[@billhanson4921]

the ceramic recuperator idea was used on a Chrysler jet car i believe it preheated the air for the jet and cooled the air for the exhaust at the same time by rotating through the flow

[@BNETT21]

Seems like we could add in TECs (thermal electric coolers)/Peltier to also generate power from the heat as it's cooled. IE a 12V system for traditional accessories. This also seems like something a science enthusiast whom watches a ton of science content on KZbin would come up with. It just makes so much sense to me. All of it being things I've seen on popular KZbin videos but combined into a single project. This almost seems like it can be an advanced DIY project for more hardcore makers.

[@AbishaiSingh]

This is exciting idea. Would be cool if these automobile companies actually try it!!

[@braveecologic2030]

Brilliant video, excellent technology... I would have gone with day after day but the day and not night thing was definitely funnier 😁

[@extraincomesuz]

Good video. I'm not sure about all the heat... 🤔 It would be nice to see this working.