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Lightcell: An engine that uses light to make electricity

(www.lightcellenergy.com)
113 points curl-up | 1 comments | 14 Jan 25 13:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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nialv7 ◴[17 Jan 25 22:14 UTC] No.42743844[source]▶
Two questions I have:

1. How much of the fuel's energy is released as heat? They have a heat recapture device, but that's only used to preheat air/fuel, and not used to generate electricity. Is the energy in the heat simply discarded?

2. Can this be made to work without the process of burning? i.e. can it function purely from heat? If it can, it might be able to replace steam turbines in, for example, nuclear plants or CSP plants. That could be hugely beneficial.

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1. DaniFong ◴[18 Jan 25 01:43 UTC] No.42745024[source]▶
it can work purely from heat, however our process requires high temperature heat for power density.