Nano-piezo generator driven by water-ice transition idea

[aleks]

The idea is built around the fact that when water is cooled down it transforms into ice that produces a lot of ultrasonic waves during crystallization.

We may take a small water pool 5x5 cm wide, 0.05 cm deep filled with distilled water (4% less the volume to allow ice to expand). We should put this pool on top of a Peltier thermo-electric module which will be used to heat up and cool down the pool. On top of the water pool we should put a micromechanic piezo electric generator (to my knowlegde, this is a widely-researched technology today). This "sandwich" should be kept in 0.1 deg.C conditions to allow fast heating and cooling around water's crystallization point, excessive heat produced by the Peltier module should be removed.

The more efficient the thermo-electric device the better: in the best case the heat should be taken from and given to the water in oscillating manner with minimum energy requirements (but to my knowledge, Peltier modules are already pretty efficient for creating very small temperature gradients that make small energy transfers). The faster the oscillation the better: number of crystallization cycles per unit of time should be maximized.

The main point here is the 'buzz' created by crystallization. In my 'theory' water crystallization is able to structurize aether's movements thus making it possible to extract usable energy out of it (crystallization as a process does not take energy, but as its byproduct it compresses surrounding matter in a structured fashion and thus produces ultra sonic waves that later turn into heat - no loss/no gain process if you do nothing about it). In my 'theory' heat is random aether's movements on atom scale and thus they cannot be transformed into usable energy without creating a 'structure' like creating a temperature gradient. The same applies to micro-mechanic devices: they can't collect energy from heat, but they can collect energy from the buzz created by crystallization.

While this can be done with other crystallizing substances, I think water is most simple to use. Beside that the fact that water turns into 6-ended snowflakes should give you a clue of what I mean by 'structuring'.

If my 'theory' is correct, one would not even need to remove the excessive heat produced by Peltier module since it will be eventually structured and consumed by the micro-mechanic generator. The surplus energy is probably extracted from the surrounding heat meaning this generator should not work in deep space and should have a source of heat. In the 'mystical' case the energy will be extracted from the aether. (it may of course not work at all)

For micro-mechanic piezzo generator you may look-up some latest nano-technology that grows lengthy micro piezo crystals on a substrate.

[aleks]

Some additional thoughts.

First of all, I've missed a forum with my message. But I guess it's OK to post my message here since forum dealing with piezo electricity is almost empty.

On the generator: it would probably be a good idea to run it in crystallization conditions instead of performing full water-ice-water cycle. As you know, crystallization itself requires a lot of heat energy to be removed from the water, after it reaches the crystallization point. I do not see a need to perform the full cycle while we can remove half of the required energy and be at the midst of the crystallization process, and we can oscillate the process around this 'half crystallization' point. This will also minimize water condensation (which is mainly caused by ultrasonic waves). Generally speaking, "center temperature point" (around which oscillation occurs) can be calibrated precisely by examining piezo generator's output. A very simple DSP chip may control the whole process in an automated way, with auto-calibration.

Another point is that ultrasonic waves are generated in both directions: when crystallizing and melting (obviously, only the acoustic phase of emitted waves differs), so piezo generator will produce energy steadily.

It is very probable that the speed at which water cools down and melts affects the current we have on the piezo generator since the faster the process the more crystals are created per unit of time and thus ultrasonic waves of greater magnitude are created. And so, the frequency of oscillation I was speaking about not only affects the energy flow (which increases linearly with the frequency), but it also affects the magnitude of the extracted energy, and so the energy return should at least quadruple per frequency doubling.

As far as efficiency is concerned, an obvious balance that should be checked is the amount of energy Peltier module takes and amount of energy generated by piezo generator. Currently I can make no speculations about this balance since to my knowledge nobody really measured energy that can be extracted from quick cooling and heating of water and ice.

A note about Peltier module efficiency. Since I'm talking about small energy transfers, the amount of energy Peltier module takes to do its 'Maxwell's daemon' job is small. According to some module's characteristic if I run this module at 0.5V/0.2A current it will be consuming 0.1 W of energy. If the "cold" side will not be generating heat and will stay at 0 deg.C, the hot side will be staying approximately at 6 deg.C. At this setup, Peltier may soak up to Qc=4W from the cold side at most (I'm reffering to the graph). However, I'm not experienced enough to equate maximum temperature difference on the Peltier module at the given current with the actual energy transfer. But I think it's pretty safe to assume temperature difference to be zero and derive energy transfer from there. For example, at high current (4A), Peltier module may remove up to 58W from the cold side while it will generate 40W of its own heat. In my low-current example module produces 0.1W of heat only per 4W transfer.

A bit of calculations:
volume of water: 5x5x0.05cm = 1.25cm3
mass of water: 0.9982g/cm3*1.25cm3=~1.25g=0.00125kg
hidden crystallization heat capacity: 0.00125kg*334000J/kg= 417J
4W*s = 4 Joules.

As you may see, a lot of heat should be removed and returned to the water to crystallize it. But since we'll be oscillating around half crystallization point, we may oscillate from 25% crystal to 75% crystal, and that will require about 100 J of heat removal and then 100 J of heat addition (200 J per cycle).

Unfortunately, with Peltier module at 0.2A current it will take 25 seconds in one direction, or 50 seconds for the full oscillation. It's a bit slow. Of course, Peltier can be ran at a higher current, but this will hurt energy performance badly. A possible solution here would be using Peltier module with a higher area (7x7cm) which probably can transfer more energy without much voltage-current increase, depth of water pool can be decreased as well, to at least 0.1mm - such pool will require only 40 J of energy transfer per cycle (given 5x5cm width/height). Going to lower (micrometer) scales may provide even more benefit to oscillation frequency increase.

(a later correction: of course it should be 400 J per cycle, so the water pool should be even thinner. on the other hand, more efficient variants of thermoelectric modules can be used. in some very fantastic scenario such device can be produced in nano wafer form with thermo-electric substrate, water layer and a nano-piezo generator, all enclosed into a water-proof case so that water stays between solids forever: in such form the generator could be replicated in any quantities and used everywhere as an 'eternal battery' - of course given the basic thing works).