The Gallium Indium Arsenide layer is (can be) a terrible thermal conductor, which is great here. The efficiency is going to be an interesting computation, do you count it as loss if it passes through the cell, reflects off the backplate mirror, and returns to service inside the heat source where you can take a second bite at conversion?
The Gallium Indium Arsenide layer is (can be) a terrible thermal conductor, which is great here. The efficiency is going to be an interesting computation, do you count it as loss if it passes through the cell, reflects off the backplate mirror, and returns to service inside the heat source where you can take a second bite at conversion?
The hot side of this McDLT is problematically warm for anything required to speak to both sides of the house. Looking at the NREL paper the continuously cooled backplate preserves your electronics letting you pull power out of the system/cells and only draws off the heat that makes it through the cell and past the mirror. The interconnects and power extraction are still going to pose challenges? The back of the junction can be a terrible thermal conductor (great here) and one could do even more with the microstructure (ala porosity frustrating phonon modes) but the demands from pulling off the electrons are probably going to constrain options here leading to storage leakage in practice. A GPHS-RTG pattern with many small cells working in tandem to produce power around the bright core speaks to the same requirements, though at much reduced temperatures. Smaller cells also puts you on a path to a learning curve in a single unit (572 thermoelectric unicouples per GPHS-RTG).
There will be a nontrivial volume of water and this will pull a non-trivial quantity of heat so long as the unit is active. The calculus on drawing down the heat reservoir will factor in how much energy it takes to recharge and re-establish efficient conversion and if it is reasonable to do that before the next draw down opportunity - because you'd be trying to maximize use and profit from the cell rather than operational efficiency (you might continue to generate below 1,000C where efficiency has fallen off if the spot price is high enough, you have a contractual obligation, or you know the next recharge spike will be free/curtailed energy).
The Gallium Indium Arsenide layer is (can be) a terrible thermal conductor, which is great here. The efficiency is going to be an interesting computation, do you count it as loss if it passes through the cell, reflects off the backplate mirror, and returns to service inside the heat source where you can take a second bite at conversion?
The hot side of this McDLT is problematically warm for anything required to speak to both sides of the house. Looking at the NREL paper the continuously cooled backplate preserves your electronics letting you pull power out of the system/cells and only draws off the heat that makes it through the cell and past the mirror. The interconnects and power extraction are still going to pose challenges? The back of the junction can be a terrible thermal conductor (great here) and one could do even more with the microstructure (ala porosity frustrating phonon modes) but the demands from pulling off the electrons are probably going to constrain options here leading to storage leakage in practice. A GPHS-RTG pattern with many small cells working in tandem to produce power around the bright core speaks to the same requirements, though at much reduced temperatures. Smaller cells also puts you on a path to a learning curve in a single unit (572 thermoelectric unicouples per GPHS-RTG).
There will be a nontrivial volume of water and this will pull a non-trivial quantity of heat so long as the unit is active. The calculus on drawing down the heat reservoir will factor in how much energy it takes to recharge and re-establish efficient conversion and if it is reasonable to do that before the next draw down opportunity - because you'd be trying to maximize use and profit from the cell rather than operational efficiency (you might continue to generate below 1,000C where efficiency has fallen off if the spot price is high enough, you have a contractual obligation, or you know the next recharge spike will be free/curtailed energy).
I wish I could show you my head exploding as I realized that this is how they got to 50% efficiency