ZPEnergy.com - The Thermionic Revolution - Using Ambient Heat Energy

will do to fuel based motors what the Industrial Revolution did to the horse.

What is possible: A simple way has been found that promises to make cheap abundant electricity from the heat in air

On 19 June 07, Prof G Mahan, a Thermionics expert and currently a visiting Professor at Penn State University wrote:

"It is well known that thermionic power generators would work well at room temperature if one could find a stable material with a low work function……."

If power can be generated at room temperature:

•oil will become worthless
•the price of electricity will tumble
•cars will run on heat from the air
•ships will run on heat from sea water
• Fertilizer could be made by a hybrid of solar and the new generator, to make Syngas and recombine with nitrogen on farm;
• As the process produces large amount of cooling, limitless quantities of water could be condensed from the air for both agriculture and human consumption.
• The price of food would plummet.
• First and second world living-standards would skyrocket.
• Malaria would be eradicated by universal air conditioning.

The Challenge:
Work function is the force holding free electrons to a surface.

As with gravity, the higher it is, the harder it is to escape.

Here is a list of work functions & the Amps of electrons escaping at room temp. (see http://www.thermionicrevolution.com/ table)

• Escaping electrons make a metal positively charged.
• If the metal is connected to the Earth, a supply of free electrons, it will draw in electrons to regain neutral charge
•The force on the electrons is equal to work function. • If the force (emf) acts via a Faraday motor & dynamo we can get high power output

A hundred years of searching has failed to deliver an economical work function.

Three important points:

• A disk rotating very rapidly causes the free electrons inside the disk to push against the outside electrons thus inducing millivolts at the outer surface
• Sharp points (10:1 height to base) multiply this effect by 1000
• At room temperature the average free electron in a metal travels at 100,000 meters/sec. The most energetic of them travel at up to 1,000,000 meters/sec.

The solution:
• By combining rotation and points, we can produce an effective 0.15ev work function.
• The drawing below shows how these effects can be incorporated in a design.
• It shows (in cross section) a red disk spinning on a 240v a.c dynamo shaft.
• Above the disk is a ring magnet (yellow) which is connected to magnetic iron (grey).
• At the outer edge of the disk there is an array of sharp points.
• The disk gets replacement electrons via a very sharp (for low loss) secondary needle array (top of orange).
• The dynamo (blue) works initially as a motor to get the disk up to design speed, then it is a dynamo.
• As electrons are emitted from the outer surface, a current flows through the disk.
• That current passes the magnets & induces a torque in the disk which then turns the dynamo.
• Electrons are replaced at the same rate they were emitted from the disk via the extra sharp secondary needle array (top of orange).
• This also transfers some heat.
• Heat flows to the disk from the upper and lower case.
• At a work function of 0.15ev, we do work of 2.4E-20Joules per emitted electron.
• At an edge speed of 300m/s replacement electrons use 4.1E-26 Joules to get up to edge speed.
• The net work available for torque (output) is therefore 2.39E-20J.
• Allowing for losses, we estimate output at 3Kw. for a150cm diameter disk.
...

More: http://www.thermionicrevolution.com/
(thx KeelyNetNews)