A while back Mark Dansie shared this topic about this discovery:
https://overunity.com/17508/graphenes-ripples-as-an-endless-source-of-clean-energy (https://overunity.com/17508/graphenes-ripples-as-an-endless-source-of-clean-energy)
Now the university has licensed the patent to a company which is developing a power source on a chip solution of this discovery:
https://www.uark.edu/determined/features/tiny-but-mighty/index.php (https://www.uark.edu/determined/features/tiny-but-mighty/index.php)
The company is called NTS innovation and morez info on this can be found on their website:
https://www.ntsinnovations.com/thermodynamix (https://www.ntsinnovations.com/thermodynamix)
It seems their main target is medical and low power devices but I don't see how this cannot be scaled up. I'm honestly against tax payer funded research being patented but the concept is so simple that it might wake some Chinese company up to start mass producing these.
If thermal energy can be harvested this way (essentially a maxwell demon) I don't know how this can't become the most revolutionary technology on earth with all the climate change doom een gloom that is going on.
Here's also a youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=Ph4xvAc9HFQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=Ph4xvAc9HFQ)
Nice find! Sounds awesome if it can get developed without the usual stumbling blocks. 100 kilowatts per square meter of graphene - could power cars easily and so many things would never need a battery replacement. Which is why I worry it might get blocked / bought out and shelved / destroyed by some nefarious means. Hopefully the University of Arkansas professor gets that Nobel prize which I think would help prevent those pitfalls.
I don't think this will be quieted that easily seeing the academic backing it has. However initial applications will probably be for ultra low power devices such as pacemakers, hearing aids or other internal medical devices.
Also I think the 100kW claim is just some marketing, perhaps in theory it can do this based on thermal energy at certain temperatures. But in practice you probably would need a ton of airflow to extract that amount of energy as the air or liquid around this device would cool so quickly it will turn into a block of ice.
Oscar Lee Fellows MEMS-TAR : up to 10W / sqcm energy conversion , with cooling system.( f.e. I.B.M.)
1 sqm = 100 cm x 100 cm = 10000 sqcm x 10 W/sqcm = 100 KW/ sqm in AC
I do not think that ambiental condition gives this maximal output, only compressed/ concentrated energy flow.
As solar energy converter given Wattpeak claim : 10v7/ sqm
10.000 KWp/sqm, in words : ten thousand KWp per squaremeter
https://patents.google.com/patent/US5623119A/en (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5623119A/en)
Instead copper/Alu graphene/Alu ?
Going historical some decades back : https://patents.google.com/patent/US4039352A/en (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4039352A/en)
an hydrogen on demand to heat to electric conversion system
Some do remember : Quenco and Quentron converter by Hardcastle/Solomon ?
http://www.magnetosynergie.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=871
200V @10 A output for $1 ::)