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Nano-engineered thermoelectrics enable scalable, compressor-free cooling

(www.jhuapl.edu)
119 points mcswell | 1 comments | 30 Jun 25 14:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.393s | source
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fnordpiglet ◴[03 Jul 25 02:52 UTC] No.44451185[source]▶
Thermoelectric cooling needs as much research as possible. Mechanical cooling is extraordinarily space consuming. CHESS has the potential over the next 10 years to largely replace vapor compression in most systems other than the most extreme gradients or scales. They are small enough to incorporate into most devices and would allow smaller devices more thermal load. In some ways I think efficient TEC like CHESS could be more useful than room temperature super conductors.
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vlovich123 ◴[03 Jul 25 05:43 UTC] No.44451982[source]▶
Nah. Heat pumps are ~10-100x more efficient than thermoelectric. Thermoelectric is just inefficient mechanism and is inherently difficult to scale up as the more electricity gets generated so does more heat which inhibits the temperature gradient you’re trying to utilize. There’s a reason water cooling is preferred instead of peltier to ferry heat away from electronic.

Magnetocaloric is super interesting though as an alternative to heat pumps. Likely the next big revolution in this space.

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1. audunw ◴[03 Jul 25 09:04 UTC] No.44453068[source]▶
It’s really, really weird to comment on the efficiency of these devices on an article like this, without actually checking the paper being referenced. Like, we know traditional thermoelectric are inefficient. But that’s the whole point of this research. To improve it.

It seems like they achieve a CoP of 1.3-6.8 (depending on heat transfer load) versus e.g. - CoP of 2-4 which is common for a household refrigerator. So we are already in similar territory.

The article also references a Samsung refrigerator already in the market using a hybrid system with thermoelectric to achieve higher efficiency. So clearly commercial thermoelectics are already efficient enough to have a role in efficient cooling.

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-unveils-new-refriger...

The article has the CoP numbers for the thermoelectric element used in that Samsung refrigerator as well, if you’re interested.