Peltier + vortex + airpump = possible overunity ?

[sigmaX]

Hi!

I?ve been reading this forum for months (or even years) ... It is inspiring, to say the least.

I work for a non profit non gubernamental institution down here (I live in Uruguay, South America) which focus in renewable energy sources. Among other stuff, we teach school and highschool children to build solar ovens, solar water heaters, etc. So I've been playing with some concepts for now. I have limited proficiency in electronics (I design temperature controllers, with microcontrolers, sensors,etc. but that?s it) and good programming experience (been a software developer for 20 years).

Excuse my probably obvious ignorance in physics, but, I?ve been fantasizing with the following idea:

http://www.tellurex.com/power_modules/p219.html

1) That peltier can generate 4.8 volts at 1.2 amps when one side is exposed to a cold source and the other to a heated one (for example: assume 30 peltiers, which could eventually give me 14,4 volts at volts and 12amps, which is a bit more than needed for my idea, but hey, lets overengineer this thing! so we are sure it MAY work)

2) I would place such peltiers in a thermically insulated container, in such a way that they are placed exactly in the middle, creating two different and equal cavities, So I can blow hot air in the first and cold air in the second, for the peltiers can create electrical power.

3) In each extremity of each cavity I would create a hole, so I can blow in any of both sides and the air would travel in the inside, making contact with the peltiers and escape out in the other extremity. This of course could be configured in many other shapes / ways, but the main idea si to circulate hot air into one side and cold air into the other side of the peltiers array.

4) I would get a VORTEX pump (no moving parts, it just needs compressed air IN; and then outputs HOT (72 degrees) and COLD (-40 degrees) air, and attach a hose from the vortex outputs into each cavities of our thermic contraption, in the same side. This is also MORE than needed, temperature-wise, for the peltiers to create maximum output, but hey, it is nice to overengineer everything so you can have extra numbers to compensate if needed)

http://www.gyroscope.com/d.asp?product=VORTEXTUBE

5) The tricky part is to find an air pump that would use LESS power than what peltiers can provide: doing a 5 minute search in the internet I found: HIGH-OUTPUT 110-PSI 12-VOLT AIR COMPRESSORS: works with 12volts and draws 10 amps. (which gives a bit more pressure than what the vortex pump uses, but, lets play with bigger numbers in each part, so we are on the safe side).

In short: This system would get air at ambient temperature, accelerate and break into hot and cold air streams inside the vortex tube, and pass it thru, each stream, into each side of a peltier array which in turn generates enough voltage to power the air pump and give an excess ...

WHAT ? crazy ? reachable ? Where I am going wrong ? I confess that I only studied it a couple of minutes, and used information from internet that COULD be wrong ...

We are grabbing energy from the ambient air ... and probably returning it a bit ... cooler ?, in exchange of an excess of power ... Not a perfect self running machine, but no one will notice we NEED cold air   "used air" would just be thrown back, out of the holes in the other extremity of each cavity of our thermic contraption, into the ambient air (probably as far as possible from the air intake of the pump).

I am buying 10 peltiers to play with my wood stove ... but I have no vortex tube avail to expand my testings...

I am thinking ... WHERE did I go wrong with my idea ?

110psi .... maybe it is not enough to create the thermic differential on each side of 30 peltiers ? that is an area about 480 square centimeters (it seems small enough) ...

Opinions and suggestions please

Regards,

SigmaX

[PYRODIN123321]

hey sigmax, something similar- use decomp. to cool one side then maybe a vortex tube to re-heat it causing expansion then run through turbine-i dunno

all boils down to extracting the heat energy out of the ambient air, you could do it till you got close to 0 kelvin in theory-temp difference is potential energy just waiting to be used!

I found this web site-about air powered stuff but, a lot of it is run on heat actually-http://www.aircaraccess.com/download.htm

I downloaded every thing-

this guy says he can build a heat extracting machine-based on Viktor Schauberger-but he took everything off?

I found this cache of his site though haha!!http://72.14.205.104/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Awww.ultralightamerica.com%2Fair_power.htm&btnG=Google+Search

he also has some cool stuff herehttp://www.ultralightamerica.com/edav.htm

you might like this too!!http://www.frank.germano.com/viktorschauberger_3b.htm

[AlanA]

SigmaX,

I think you describe the invention from Ranque and Hilsch also called vortex tube. There doest't exists exact measurements about this tube. See the example from one producer of this tubes: https://www.abbeon.com/store/item.cfm?code=2082.
Your idea sounds good. But I don't see overunity. To generate the Peltier-effect you need a source of engery (heat, coldness or electricity).
But is seems interesting. The vortex tube splits air in hot and cold air. But think about this: What does cold air do: It uses the ambient air to get up to the same level than ambient temperature. This goes hand in hand with the increase of pressure. I think this is what Pyrodin wants to say with the stuff from aircaraccess (air - heat - pressure).

[resonanceman]

SigmaX

To my understanding   a vortex tube  is not  a very efficient  way to  create hot and cold.

A  sterling  engine   can be very efficient .

Normally  a sterling  engine   runs  off a temprature  difference  just like your peltiers

If  a  sterling engine is driven by an outside  power  source  one cylinder  gets hot ..........the other  side gets cold.

There are sterling engines out there that have been developed   to  cool  cryogenic  prosesses

In the case of the sterling    you  would  attach half  your peltiers to each  cylinder   of the sterling



It might  be possible  to loop the  thermal energy .

If  you were driving  2 sterling engines with one shaft .......  if one of the  sterlings was set up in reverse of the other the  tempratures they  produced  would be  opposite  ..........you would have both   hot and cold on each side  of  the shaft driving the  sterlings .      Your peltiers  could be placed between them



gary

[sigmaX]

Hi AlanA, Pyrodin, Resonanceman!

Thanks for you comments and information!!

I followed each of your links, Pyrodin with most attention. I already knew the Austrian's Victor work (I read the Alan Cook book about antigravity, and learned about him in there, and then looked out for more info ... he was a brilliant man, used first by the SS nazis and then by apparently covert CIA people in the  disguise of a corporation offering him work in USA... which ended up killing him, I assume, of sadness / disgust. GRR

AlanA: The vortex tube I am speaking of, is a commercial product, and there are all the specs in the link I provided. What I proposed is based on actual commercial / "everyone can buy" ...

About the overunity: I think like you, this is  * PROBABLY * NO overunity system (but the question at the bottom of this post remains)

What is more, my personal opinion about the overunity topic (which I might have misunderstood of course) is that there is none in the strictest sense: Please correct me if I am wrong, but the strict overunity concept would mean to create energy from nowhere, which seems to be a NO-GO by our current physics standards.

If you manage to get an excess energy, and can?t find an answer, you might search for the energy provider even in quantum phenomena: There should be always an energy exchange, even if it comes from "a parallel universe". But anyway, if we can't find an answer, we are also entitled to shout Overunity!, aren?t we ?

So now, back into my "idea":

1) I grab ambient air temperature (lets say 20 ?C)  with a 12V 10amps air pump

2) and insert it into the vortex tube (now I am truly thinking of buying one!).  In 100 psi ... I get TWO air streams output, one at around -30 / -40 ?C and the other at 60 / 70 ? (I assume that each one will be HALF in pressure as the input air).

3) I inject each 50 psi stream to each side of a peltier array, enclosed in a thermically shielded case. The air will cool and heat each peltier?s side, thus generating voltage / current (ATTENTION 1: HERE IS THE FIRST PROBABLY PLACE where things wont be as nice as put in paper by the peltier manufacturers, and I might end with not enough power to move the air pump, in practice)

4) If everything is according to manufacturers, I could get in excess of 12v, with excess of 12 amps. If I dont get it,  ATTENTION: SECOND PROBABLY FAILURE PLACE: it could mean that air temperature gets balanced out before reaching the far end of the peltier array (hence the peltiers are not working at 100% electricity generation).

5) The "used air" (will escape into the atmosphere (probably outside the house, so it does not change my ambient temp over the time, as I suspect that it will come out hotter  / cooler than what was sucked in from the other side).

My intuition tells me that there are two "could go wrong" points: 1) Air temperature would balance out inside my thermic enclosure before doing its work with every peltier, so generated voltage would be lower than advertised, thus not generating enough to work the pump out. Or 2) I did not correctly understand the peltier information provided by the manufacturer.

BUT: if everything works OK, where does the energy comes from ? The only place I can think of, is from the air temperature: I am suspecting that the air coming out of this hipotetical system would be at different temperature than the one coming in.

BUT: it could come out at the same temperature, if we assume that the peltiers just try to balance out each temperature?s side in the same amounts (and creating electricity while at it). If it comes at the same temperature (which would mean that the peltier?s themselves does not favour or create coldness or hotness in the process of making electricity) then it would be overunity, wouldn't it ?

Damn! I will have to buy everthing and test it out please some reader with physics knowledge could throw down my idea, so I dont invest several hundred dollars purchasing a ghost ?

Resonanceman: Thanks for the suggestion. Problem is that the peltiers need the cold and heat at the same time, applied to both surfaces. If I correctly get your idea, I need TWO stirling machines to create this (at the same time) hence, needing twice the power to move them (thus halving the system efficiency).

ANyway, I find stirling machines QUITE INTERESTING!!!! It is very nice to see all these puzzle pieces and the way they might interact to create a notable result.



Regards,

SigmaX