From: ken deboer
Have y'all heard of the work at Rice Univ. by Halas et al vaporizing (cold) water directly in a couple seconds by various nanoparticles. In ACS Nano. Interesting - this is a "sleeper" technology. I saw it the other day too but the full significance did not become apparent till you mentioned it in this other context (Davey replication). Big potential for synergy. http://news.rice.edu/2012/11/19/rice-unveils-super-efficient-solar-energy-te chnology/ The article states the efficiency is 24% . without "boiling water" per se - IOW we have H2O in contact with the nanoparticles which goes directly to steam with minimal boiling of the bulk water - and presumably fairly low pressure. Of course, some critical details are not mentioned, like the steam pressure needed for 24% eff. Big tradeoff - and at first it seems brain-dead, since solar steam cycles are much better - but this is Rice University where there are few dummies. Normal steam cycles (in coal plants) give up to ~40-50 % conversion and above, but they demand high pressure heat exchangers, expensive turbines, specialty steels (and high overhead) and large form factors. This design, in contrast, gives less net efficiency due to sub-optimal steam pressure, but in a minimalistic form factor - so the aim is more towards desalinization or water purification, with some energy to boot. The net cost for hardware is the big unanswered question, but it looks to be very favorable. IOW it is third-world oriented at present with the aim of a few hundred dollars per household for pure water and some power (Gates criterion) . however . as for energy first in the USA - as well as pure water - 24% efficiency is much higher than typical solar cells, and you get the extra heat to boot - so if mass production lowered the cost of a mirror system such as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ved0K5CtmsU <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ved0K5CtmsU&feature=youtu.be> &feature=youtu.be Then it would make plenty of sense for home use (and co-gen heating) in the USA - where high pressure steam would be too problematic. Installed cost could be lower than photocells as well, with mass production. I'd say this could be a major breakthrough in itself, but also could have synergy with LENR systems, or especially a cavitation system which is powered by the steam-to-electric conversion. Jones Don't forget the Tesla Turbine is a low cost way to convert low pressure to torque.
