GB2539694A - Atmospheric environment energy harvesting generator - Google Patents

Abstract

An energy harvesting device for converting heat from the environment into electrical energy, having a heat absorbing plate 1, a heat retaining plate 2, a transducer 3 to convert heat energy to electrical energy, a compressor pump 8 to pump heat from absorption plate to radiant plate, an electronic storage component 6, a pre-regulation circuit 10 to regulate the voltage, and a final stage regulator 11 for routing the generated electrical energy to electrical devices. The transducer may convert heat energy to electrical energy either by using the Peltier effect, or by using pressurised hot vapour to drive a turbine that rotates a generator. The device is intended for use in locations where common power sources are not available, to provide power to personal electronic devices. The generated electricity can also be stored by a rechargeable battery.

Description

Subject: Atmospheric Generator description RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to patent application number GB1408977.5 Originally filed in 20' January 2014

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to powering electrical components and or devices, charging electrical storage devices where an electrical input power source is required. This is a type of generator and is in its entirety a novel invention.

BACKGROUND

The device came about when an electrical power source was needed while operating a Transceiver in a remote location where electrical power was scarce. The invention of the device is intended to operate in rural locations where common sources of power are not available. The device provides an alternative to power generation currently in todays market.

The power conversion used is a reliable fuel source that is in abundance all around us and this invention harneses this form of energy, converts it to electrical energy to power sources that require electrical energy.

Currently many people require to use either fuels from crude oil or bio-fuels to power mechanical machines which rotate a transducer to produce electrical energy.

All current form of electrical generator and or devices require either a chemical reaction to produce heat or the burning of fossil fuels in a combustion chamber to release their energy. These can be dangerous, loud(noise) and highly polluting to the environment. They are usually very heavy and almost always require hazardous materials for their proper operation, in some cases the use of hydrogen or nuclear materials is used which increases hazardous operation.

Therefore a need for this invention was required to improve not only the reliability of power generation to the human race but to provide a scalable, robust, 100% clean electrical power generation with the least most harm to the global environment.

SUMMARY

A atmospheric environment generator can include a current transforming absorption mechanism that can easily be used in multiple installations to power electrical circuits including mobile portable applications.

The device includes a mechanism for transferring heat from one location to another(refrigeration) and a transducer to convert the heat energy to electrical energy that maybe used to power electrical circuits.

The device can be of many shapes and sizes, the device is herein referred to as a generator as it generates electrical power from the surrounding environment.

The circuitry can include a pre-regulator circuit that receives the current from the generator and develop a voltage matched to a power curve of the generator. An output of the pre-regulator is coupled to an output regulator that can regulate the voltage to an output voltage suitable for an electrical device, such as a communications device or other device. The circuitry also can include an energy storage device, such as a rechargeable battery or a supercapacitor, that can provide power to the electrical device when the generator is not supplying an adequate amount of energy. The energy storage device can be connected to the output of the pre-regulator/charging circuit to allow the generator to operate continuously when the electrical device(s) are drawing less power than the generator can provide.

The device can be constructed to withstand harsh environments, again depending on the application the invention can be built in a multitude of designs to operate across a diverse spectrum of environments provided the environment is not at absolute zero temperature.

In one embodiment, an energy harvesting generator device for converting surrounding heat energy includes a transducer having an electrical mechanical structure thereon and configured to convert heat into an induced current in a circuit transfer process and a circuit electrically coupled to the electrical generator and configured to convert the received induced current into an electrical energy for consumption by an electrical device.

In another embodiment, a method for powering an electrical device using energy captured from surrounding heat by a generator without causing damage to the environment includes refrigeration, a transfer of heat from one location to another on a thermal conductive material with a large surface area to another thermally conductive material of a large surface area which maybe of different sizes. The routing of the heat to a transducer device to convert the heat into electrical energy through a mechanism coupled to the transducer; converted by the transducer heat to electricity; the circuit can be coupled to a regulator regulating by a switching or linear regulator a voltage level associated with the direct current to a voltage level of the electrical device; and routing of the direct current at the voltage level to the electrical device.

These and other aspects, objects, features, and embodiments of the invention will become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments exemplifying the best mode for carrying out the invention as presently perceived.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the invention and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following description, in conjunction with the accompanying figures briefly described as follows.

As shown in Figure. 1.

1) Thermally conductive plate and chamber used to absorb heat from the surrounding environment. May include additional conductors to absorb heat from the earth or sky.

2)The second highly thermal capacitive conductive plate and chamber that the heat absorbed by plate one is transferred to and concentrated within. This plate material can be a combination of alloys with Cast Iron as cast iron has the properties of retaining heat for longer periods of time.

3)Transducer, this can be to utilize the pelter effect by using P and N semiconductor material which converts a heat differential between a cold plate and a hot plate to electrical energy or it can be any form of transducer capable of heat to electrical energy conversion such as a pressurized hot vapor driving a turbine that rotates a generator.

4) Is an arrow indication of the electrical generated current flow 5) Is the arrow of direction of heat flow 6) Is an electrical energy storage device such as a battery or super capacitor.

7) Arrow of indication of current flow used to power the heat pumping transferring device.

8) Compressor Pump used to pump heat from refrigerant gas from absorption plate to radiant plate.

9) Arrow indicating ambient environmental heat being absorbed into the generator 10) Pre-Regulator circuit used to regulate the voltage/current and distribute/route amongs the generator and out to the final stage circuitry.

11) Final stage regulator and routing out to electrical devices.

Figure 2.

Drawing indication of the plates (1) of figure 1: 1)Liquid refrigerant input ventricle which rapidly evaporates into a gas within the chamber.

2) Output ventricle where the evaporated refrigerant gas is sucked out by the pump and compressed back into a liquid taking with it the absorbed heat from the environment.

3) Chamber filled with refrigerant gas vapor.

4) finned thermally conductive material of large suffice area.

Figure 3.

Drawing of heat location plate two(2) from figure 1.

1) Output of liquid compressed refrigerant to small governing vaporising jet.

2) Input from compressor pump of gaseous refrigerant vapor being compressed back into a liquid while carrying the absorbed heat.

3) Pressurized chamber containing compresses liquid refrigerant.

4) Heat storage material or substrate or device that heat transferred from plate one is stored within, eg. Cast Iron or hot liquid vessel.

5) Insulation used to keep gathered heat from plate one(figure 1(1)) together so to reduce the amount of heat radiated back into the environment increasing the efficiency of the generator.

Figure 4. P.I.A.T. (Put It All Together) 1) Absorption plate gaseous pressure chamber(cold plate absorption) 2) Location chamber compressed refrigerant liquid transferred heat from plate one.

3) Transducer, pelter effect device or any device that converts heat to electrical energy.

4) Pre-Regulation, charging and routing circuit.

5) Final stage regulation for voltage and current prior to powering electrical devices.

6) Arrow of current flowing to pre-regulation circuit.

7) Heat storage medium that retains heat gathered by plate one(1) and transferred to location plate (2).

8) Refrigerant pump used to pump transfer the heat and compress the refrigerant from a gas to a liquid.

9) arrow showing the routing of electrical current from the pre-regulation circuitry.

10) Governing atomization jet to restrict and govern the flow of refrigerant back into the absorption plate where it again vaporises from a liquid back to a gas.

11) Fan/Blower that blows ambient air over the hot plate(2) back and around to the absorption plate. unused escaping head radiating back into the environment is re-absorbed back into the generator for efficiency.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The exemplary embodiments provide a generator device, invention that includes a refrigiration mechanism and a transducer which transfers ambient heat, stores it in the transferred location to such a concentration that a transducer such as a pelter or hot pressurized media vapor to convert the heat into electrical energy which then powers the generator and produces excess harvested energy via circuitry to electrical devices that are connected to the generator.

The generator can be of any size or shape or colour and be made to provide many levels of energy output for consumption by any number of electrical devices.

Figure 1. is a block type diagram indicating the invention and how it is to function. The term refrigerant is used to describe the process of transferring heat from one location to another and design wise respectively this can be achieved in many ways. We use the most common and simplest way for the purpose of explaining clearly the invention and novel idea within this text.

The generator compromises of a absorption plate (1, figure 1) which is a highly thermally conductive material e.g. Aluminum which has a air tight pressure chamber attached to it or machined as part of the plate with an inlet and outlet ventricles. This allows for a gaseous chemical to be pushed into the chamber and sucked out of the chamber in this example as to induce the transfer of heat from one location to another (2, figure 1)).

Plate (2, figure 1) is the location heat is transferred to from the absorption plate (1, figure 1), this plate is also thermally conductive but use of more dense heat retaining materials such as Cast Iron is used as so the heat can be retained and built up in the material as the heat is collected from plate one(Absorption plate (1, figure 1)). This process is carried out by a pump (8, figure 1) which compresses the gas refrigerant so much so it becomes a liquid in the second plates chamber of plate two(2, figure 1). As the gas is compressed and in a liquid state it is regulated through a small hole back into the chamber of plate one (1, figure 1) absorption plate causing the absorption plate to cool rapidly due to the nature of the refrigeration effect. This means that Plate one becomes cold and plate two becomes hot. Naturally the ambient temperature wants to return the cold plate to ambient temperature and this plate(1, figure 1) begins to absorb heat from the surrounding environment, of course we immediately suck the heating gas back out of plate ones chamber by the use of the pump (8, figure 1) and transfer this heat to plate two (2, figure 1) compressing the gas back into a liquid. In the mean time the forced air induction fan (12, figure 1) pushes air over the hot plate (2, figure 1)back around to plate (1, figure 1) which also contributes to the heat not converted to electrical energy by the transducer (3, figure 1) to be recycled back into the generator.

The transducer (3 fromn figure 1) can be any form of generator capable of converting heat energy into electrical energy. For the purpose of completeness a pelter effect device was used which is a semiconductor device that is used to pump heat from one side of the device to another much like refrigeration. This device is used in reverse meaning that instead of applying electric current to the device to pump heat, current is pulled from the device while one side is forcefully cooled by plate one(1 from figure 1) and the other side is forcefully heated by plate two (2 from figure 1). The current is then coupled and routed by a per-regulation circuit (10 from figure 1) which stores some of the energy in the electric storage device (battery and or super-cap(6 from figure 1)) and powers the pump (8 from figure 1) and forced induction fan/blower (12 from figure 1). The excess energy is then routed to (11 from figure 1) the final stage regulation and regulated to voltage and current levels for electrical devices.

Although specific embodiments have been described above in detail, the description is merely for purposes of illustration. It should be appreciated, therefore, that many aspects of the invention were described above by way of example only and are not intended as required or essential elements of the invention unless explicitly stated otherwise. Various modifications of, and equivalent steps corresponding to, the disclosed aspects of the exemplary embodiments, in addition to those described above, can be made by a person of ordinary skill in the art, having the benefit of this disclosure, without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention defined in the following claims, the scope of which is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass such modifications and equivalent structures.

Claims (17)

1. Subject: Atmospheric Generator Claims 1) An energy harvesting device that absorbs heat energy from a heat source and transfers it to another location while at the same time cooling the heat source and generating electricity to power electrical devices.The device comprises of: A compressor pump for the use of refrigeration, absorbing and cooling the source and heating the intended destination location to provide a high potential heat difference for the purpose of generating electricity.A electronic storage device, pre-regulation circuit and a regulated output circuit consumption by electronic devices.
2. 2) Generating a potential difference of heat energy across a pelter device used in reverse to produce electrical current to power and charge electrical circuits.
3. 3)A heat transfer circuit coupled to a transducer to convert the heat potential to electrical energy for consumption by electrical devices.
4. 4)A device that powers itself from its own energy harvesting, comprising of a circuit that routes electrical energy to charge its own electrical storage device which powers the generator while at the same time routes regulated power output for consumption by electronic devices.
5. 5)A device that can be extended to gather heat energy from the earth, ground, surrounding materials and atmosphere for the production of electrical energy.
6. 6)Utilizing a method of voltage regulation to supply electronic devices with the correct power needed to operate.
7. 7) The device is self harvesting and requires no additional energy source other than what it harvests itself, stores and has charged within its storage device.
8. 8) the device can have additional energy added to it to increase electricity production, such as combustion heat sources, Natural volcanic geothermal sources, manual charging of the internal electrical storage device.
9. 9) The energy harvesting device is scalable and expandable depending on the application and environment to be used in.
10. 10) Multiple configurations and construction options can be used to utilize this novel invention, size, shape, colour amongst other things can be changed to suit the environment it will be used in.
11. 11) A heat storage material that retains heat for long periods of time and can reach high temperatures.
12. 12) Insulating heat jacket placed on the heat location to increase efficiency during power generation.
13. 13) The energy harvesting device of Claim 1 comprising of a compressor pump for the purpouse of compressing a refrigerant as so to transform it from a gas into a liquid and back to a gas again for the purpose of transportation of heat source energy to location storage.
14. 14) The energy harvesting device of claim 4 comprises of a intelligent charging circuit used to charge the electronic storage device used to power the device and other electrical devices as and if needed.
15. 15) the internal storage device of the energy harvesting device can also be used as mentioned in claim 14 to be routed through the final stage regulator for consumption by electronic devices not part of the generator.
16. 16) The energy harvesting device of claim 6 can be any voltage regulation depending on the final size and design of the generator and the circuit can be set to regulate any voltage or current level as required by the consuming device.
17. 17) The energy harvesting device in claim 2 does may require only the use of a pelter device, generation to electrical current may be done by a pressurized container containing a vaporising liquid when heated which is capable of driving a turbine.