Electricity from Waste Heat
Read the full story in Technology Review.
Factories, data centers, power plants–even your clothes dryer–throw off waste heat that could be a useful source of energy. But most existing heat-harvesting technologies are efficient only at temperatures above 150 °C, and much waste heat just isn’t that hot. Now Ener-G-Rotors, based in Schenectady, NY, is developing technology that can use heat between 65 and 150 °C.
The company replaces the turbine in a typical electrical generator with a device called a gerotor, which it claims to have made “near frictionless.” “If this works, it’s so huge,” says Bob Bechtold, president of Harbec Plastics, one of Ener-G-Rotors’ potential customers. “I’ve been dreaming about the concept of using [low-temperature waste heat] ever since I first knew what it was about . . . It’s all about using what we have more completely.”