The heat of the spacecraft will be used until the last drop

The heat of the spacecraft will be used until the last drop

They create a device that allows generating electricity with the residual heat that is generated inside the spacecraft, which until now was wasted

   A group of students from Rice University (USA) has developed a device that transforms waste heat from spacecraft into electricity. They believe that the invention, created with the advice of NASA, could work only with the excesses of temperature suffered by the electronics of the International Space Station.

   When discovering the waste of energy that happens in the space, the students of this American institution decided to start up a work that facilitated a remedy. The team has used thermoelectric generators that transfer heat from cooling tubes, such as those used to radiate into space, and that can fulfill various functions.

Specifically, they can develop their primary task of generating electricity, while the cooling of the station and its components occurs, or they can reverse the process and send hot refrigerant to the desired temperature again at the station.

Experts have indicated that thermoelectric generators small flat units wired and attached to a pipe convert heat into electricity through the Seebeck effect, which determines the flow of electrons within the material as a function of the flow of heat to cold. The greater the temperature difference, the greater the amount of current produced.

The prototype generators are currently efficient enough to power their pumps on board, but the team expects the conversion rate to be around 15 percent, that is, enough to send the excess electricity to a spacecraft. and that it can be used for other uses.

Self sufficient

The students explained that in space applications the generators are placed inside a double-tube heat exchanger through which the hot fluid (which carries the residual heat of the electronics) and cold fluid (a refrigerant such as ammonia) are exchanged .

For safety reasons, they use boiling and frozen water for their laboratory experiments, in a system with 20 generators capable of providing about 25 volts of electricity, enough to make the system self-sufficient.

NASA advisers have immediately seen the potential of the idea. "The team's approach is not directly applicable to spacecraft, but the concept does. We intend to include the findings of the research in the upcoming energy system designs, "concluded Patrick George, Project Manager at NASA's Glenn Research Center.

In this regard, he added, that a system of this type applied to the ISS could provide more energy for experiments and other operations and increase the useful life of key components.