Transcending the Second Law of Thermodynamics

[Charliebrown]

A guest editorial in Entropy emagazine: The mystique of the second law: http://www.mdpi.net/entropy/papers/e6010001.pdf

 

If the Second Law of Themodynamics can be transcended than all civilization's uses of energy can become a web of prpetual motion machines of the second kind where energy is not gained or lost.

 

I hold U.S. patent 3,690,161, DIODE ARRAY, now in the public domain for a chip comprizing very many very small diodes in consistent alignment parall which concurrently absorbs heat and produces electrical power, http://diodearray.com . I posted this story in another form in my introduction.

[UncleAl]

A heat engine's output is constrained by the First Law of Thermodynamics (you cannot win) and its efficiency by the Second law of Thermodynamics (you can only break even on a very cold day). Any Peltier device with its faces at different temperatures is a thermally-driven power source. So is

 

http://www.backstreet.demon.co.uk/oddstuff/drinkingbirds/drinkingbirds.htm

 

All you have is a hi-tech dippy bird.

[Charliebrown]

The diode array works at a nominally uniform temperature ( a temperature so uniform that a drinking bird would have only one share of Brownian Movement) (I am leaving discussion room for the issue of intrinsic microregional thermal fluctuations) using Johnson noise which is white noise radio frequency power. This noisepower can be sorted by diodes which operate by shifting mobile electron populations ( in N type semiconductors) over varying amounts of a nonconductive solid background which is a rigid mixture of neutral atoms and positive donor ions. When the Johnson Noise temporarily moves forwards the diode becomes more conductive supporting a higher current / lower voltage expression of electrical flow; when the Johnson Noise temporarily moves backwards the diode becomes less conductive supporting a higher voltage / lower current expression of electrical flow. A net residue of rectified varying D.C. Electrical power is therefore available from a diode. This residue can be aggregated by many diodes in consistent alignment parallel. The power contributed by each diode should be 1 / 2 kTB times the efficiency: the power of an array of many diodes in consistent alignment parallel should be 1 / 2 kTB times the number of diodes times the efficiency. 1 / 2 kTB is ~2 nanowatts @ ~ 20 C, full thermal bandwidth ( ~ 1 Thz ) . There is always some efficiency so electrical power can be produced at a nominally uniform temperature. When electrical power is extracted from the diode array an equivalent amount of thermal energy is absorbed.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[UncleAl]

The last time I looked, all diode junctions have a threshhold voltage. Aside from being silly and impossible, it won't work.

 

The power contributed by each diode should be 1 / 2 kTB times the efficiency: the power of an array of many diodes in consistent alignment parallel should be 1 / 2 kTB times the number of diodes times the efficiency. 1 / 2 kTB is ~2 nanowatts @ ~ 20 C, full thermal bandwidth ( ~ 1 Thz )

A chip with a billion parallel diodes will get you 2 watts at 100% theoretical efficiency assuming perfection in all things plus a sustained temperature gradient. That is ludicrous. Mount a solar cell.

[Charliebrown]

The diode forward voltage is a standard calibration point. Small signal forward conductivity is always greater than reverse conductivity. The saturation current, another calibration point, is smaller as the diode cross section is made smaller. As the diode becomes smaller, the nonlinearity increases. I had a feasibility checking prototype tested in 1993. A chip with ~5600 diodes shilded in stirred purified vegetable oil yielded ~25 times 1 / 2 kTB watts, implying an efficiency of 1.8%. The Carnot efficiency would be zero. I lost contact with the test lab. A similar chip, intended for radio astronomy, can be bought now for $500 through someone else for checking this concept. My next step is contract with nanofabricators to evenly disperse 100 billion C60 buckyballs / cm^2 on an N type InSb substrate. The ~35 nm spacing provides room for the reverse polarity expanded depletion regions. I expect the efficiency to be a lot more than 2% because of the much smaller cross section. 4 watts / cm^2 as electrical output accompanied by that much refrigeration in stationary seawater at night would be acceptable in many applications.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Charliebrown]

Recently Ji Ung Lee of GE Global Research in New York fabricated a perfect diode from a C nanotube.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/8/11 .

 

Perhaps this development can be extended to make an exploratory diode array. It would also extend the investigations of others. It can probably be done quickly and smoothly. It is not as ultimately practical for large scale production as the C60 / n InSb diode array.

 

The C SWNT device requires a cathode termination, a + gate, an – gate, and an anode termination. These can be fabricated as 4 parallel stripes. Hundreds of semiconducting C SWNTs can cross the support stripes like frets on a stringed musical instrument. Insulating NB nanotubes can separate the C nanotubes. There is a high series resistance on the present perfect diode. This feature is not needed in this application. A stabilizing capacitor can be added.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Charliebrown]

Another analytical diode array prototype:

 

Many vertical [on a typical screen] N type InSb stripes on the substrate, below [on a

horizontal device] many horizontal [on a typical screen] conductive carbon nanotubes:

 

N

t

y

p

e

Many rows of conductive carbon nanotubes

I

n

S

b

 

Each intersection is a n InSb / C anode Schottky diode. These diodes have a greater cross section than C60 buckyballs but the dispersion and embedding issues are avoided. Once the dispersion and embedding issues are solved, using 60 Buckyballs will be much more practical.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Qfwfq]

Aloha Charlie.

 

Are you absolutely sure it isn't just a complicated thermocouple?

[Charliebrown]

The test chip was immersed in stirred inert vegetable oil to minimise thermocouple effects. Other possible effects I left to the professionals to minimise. For example, in a two wire device using the same conductor, thermovoltages between the bath and the instruments would cancel out. The theory is different than thermocouple effects. Johnson noise occours in resistors sitting on circuit boards of nominally uniform temperature. I am sure it is not thermomocouple effects. Low power tests would be subject to procedures to minimise the possibility of thermomocouple effects after asking people what the false mechinisms would be. I suppose a zero thermovoltage wire composition is available. High power test operation would be easier to assure as not being thermomocouple effects.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Qfwfq]

The test chip was immersed in stirred inert vegetable oil to minimise thermocouple effects.

The whole circuit would have to be.

[Charliebrown]

For a low power device we'll immerse the instrument front end. For larger prototypes a fan to even out the temperature inside the demo box will be part of the diode array's demo load.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Charliebrown]

The Chinese at Shanghai Jiao Tong University are making small scale convincing devices which violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

 

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0311/0311104.pdf nov 2003

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0509/0509111.pdf sept 2005

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Qfwfq]

Have they counted the source of the magnetic field into the balance?

[Charliebrown]

They said that they waited for the inductive effects of moving the magnets to settle out before taking the measurements. I believe that ths can be competently done. I don't think that the slow decay of a magnet is important. The experiment deserves to be checked out.

 

I wonder if closely spaced parallel sheets of different work function material where one has a low enough work function to emit well at ambient temperature and the other doesn't would produce this impractical but scientifically important amount of power without a magnet.

 

This can almost be done at home with adapted electron tubes and even heat in a good oven. Thermocouple effects would need to be eliminated in instrument wiring across a temperature differnce though.

 

Aloha, Charlie

[Qfwfq]

I don't think that the slow decay of a magnet is important.

A recent odd claim, along the lines of PM but attributing the energy output to be extracted from the vacuum according to an ad hoc version of electromagnetism using O(3) as a gauge group, apparently was explained by the ferromagnetic material acting as a battery.

 

This can almost be done at home with adapted electron tubes and even heat in a good oven. Thermocouple effects would need to be eliminated in instrument wiring across a temperature differnce though.

If you need an oven to produce an effect it's really only a demo anyway. If you still could show that Maxwell's demon was actually at work it would be interesting but it might well remain a lab curio like nega-temperatures.

[Boerseun]

Hi

 

The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems. And there is, in essence, only one closed system: The Universe. Sure - on a local level the illusion can be created of unlimited energy or 'free' energy or whatever, but energy is only attained by draining it from somewhere else.

 

Virtually every 'closed' system delivering energy as described here, where the result is believed to transcend the Second Law, has been shown to be *not* closed systems at all, and worked by sucking energy from something outside the 'closed' system.

 

This is only possible if there is no energy input at all, or if your system is indeed the entire universe.

[Qfwfq]

Careful Boerseun, the principle he claims to transcend is not that of energy conservation, although it can be slightly subtle to distinguish this from a violation of the second of thermodynamics (entropy).

 

Essentially he is claiming that his device gives an output converted from thermal energy without needing a temperature difference. A thermocouple works across a temperature difference according to thermodynamics but his claim and that of the Chinese papers he linked to is that they can convert thermal energy to electric at uniform temperature. Look up Maxwell's demon. The only slight violations of the entropy rule are in connection with negatemperatures. If it really could be done at large scale there would be no need to burn fuels at all and we could even have free air conditioning! :hyper: