Paint That Can Generate Electricity

As interesting as that is, what would be the down side of this?

How much current is generated, and would one be able to isolating the current, to kept it from have unwanted stray voltages?

It seems to me that you must give up some of the insulating properties of the paint in order to extract energy out of it. The process of energy extraction requires heat to flow between the hot and cold junctions, so there must be insulation loss. It would be interesting to see a net energy calculation for the whole process, but it would seem that you can't win - you're always better off keeping the insulating properties from a net energy point of view.

Of course, if you have a boundary where heat is going to flow across anyway and you don't care about the heat loss, then its a sure win to extract energy from the heat flow.

Did it exactly say how the energy was to be extracted? It looked like this may be an idea patent, and when someone works out the details these guys' cash in?

There is a mighty big river between "Could be used for" and "We are using it to do?".

I mean here is a quote "The energy generated has a form that could be used to generate a Ball of energy or a Force Field". Patents are being submitted on this process.

A person could generate a couple of ideas (Patents) about controlling the surface of an energy source, then set back and let some real thinker get down and do the work. Then collect royalties till the cows come home.

I Dun - Know how the heat energy could be stored and used without mucking up the isolation creating the storage. Unless the isolation was nearly perfect and one side does not react to what the other side was doing?

That was hard to say, sounded like it was having a galvonic reaction and acted somewhat simuliar to a capacitor.

If it is true then can I put electricity into it and cool and heat my house efficiently?

food for thought

Brad

what happens ro your house when the paint shorts out with the insulation??

"whatever you think:--Don't never unless you will"

Heat is very much like DC electricity. You cannot say that energy could be extracted from an insulator only because it separates 2 conductors having an electrical potential (voltage). An insulator has only potential energy. You need a heat pump to work in reverse for extracting some usable energy from a temperature difference. As Steve pointed out, without flow (current) there is no extracted energy.

The concept described in that article might be good only for waste thermal energy conversion. It is a contradiction in terms between thermal insulation and thermal conversion into electricity or anything else. In fact, it contradicts the laws of Thermodynamics.

It's not a contradiction, its just that it must sacrifice some insulating properties in order to extract energy. To put it simply, it can either be a great insulator, or a great generator, but not both at the same time.

''The fact that there is almost always, day or night and anywhere in the world, a difference between the temperature inside a building and outside a building gives us an almost constant source of energy generation to tap into''.

This suggests that part of the paint properties is solar energy conservation and surely the paint must be applied to the exterior of objects exposed to the sun.