Why Solid State Might Save The Combustion Engine

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"Solid State Engine" - sounds more exciting words than photovoltaic gas lantern.

99% chance its a scam

I'm no photovoltaics specialist, but I worked in a lab at a university where the people next door worked on micro-scale heat exchangers, and one of their projects was related to recovering waste heat from Concentrated Photovoltaic Cells (CPV), a system where a relatively cheap, large Fresnel-type lens diverts sunlight into a relatively expensive, small PV cell. The problem with that is that the cell efficiency was inversely proportional to its temperature, which is why they were trying to match these tiny heat exchangers with the tiny PV cells and use that heat to convert alcohol and plant oil into biodiesel. This engine obviously works at high temperatures. Low-Pressure Sodium Vapor lamps work at about 300°C, and the assembly seems too compact for meaningful insulation, so these cells would be working at high, temperatures, and therefore at lowered efficiencies. I'd wait for independent confirmation of these numbers before believing these are even in the correct order of magnitude.

So you get an animation and an explanation. Still seems sus to me. Thermal efficiency claims are unbelievably high. Extraordinary claims...yadayadayada.

I've been trying to conceive of an efficient "fuel into electricity" system for years, so I am also VERY skeptical that you can convert the energy twice and get even close to 80% efficiency. But I hope I'm wrong! I'd love an electric gas motorcycle that can go 1000miles on 4 gallons of gas 😊

Solid state combustion engine just sounds like a fuel cell with extra steps

Where does the heat go? If it is so efficient then the thing would not get hot. But there is a huge flame coming out of one end! I say BS. Total complete BS.

I feel like we’re going in circles. Burning something to make energy from a solar panel to charge something … uhhh

The only legit science in this episode is the shaver.

I knew Danielle when she was doing her prior clean tech start-up, LightSail (grid scale energy storage). Unfortunately LightSail didn't beat out the battery tech that hit the market, and they folded. I think her use of "LightCell" as a trade name is a riff off of her old company's name.

I don't think exhaust gas from a regular engine would be hot enough to melt salt and make it glow bright. You definitely raised many interesting points that got us all thinking about it.

A pulse jet engine is a solid state internal combustion engine.

So many issues with this thing I don't even know where to start. The pollution alone would be extremely difficult to control. It reminds me of cheap Chinese diesel heaters, actually. * Pollution. There is no way to fully burn the fuel across a swath of power levels. They might be able to fully burn the fuel at a particular power level. * Backpressure from dealing with exhaust products to remove unwanted byproducts. * Efficiency of 60% with a hot exhaust? Not even possible. And 80% combined-cycle? I don't think that's possible either. * The high temperature of the system will greatly shorten the equipment lifespan, let alone the solar cells. * Build-up of byproducts on heat exchanger surfaces. * Multiple conversion steps... another nail in the "efficiency" coffin. The biggest red flag is having multiple conversion steps (fuel to heat, heat to light, light to cell, cell to electricity) and still claiming extreme efficiencies. That gets into "sell me the Brooklyn bridge" territory. I don't think this thing is real. -Matt

The best video of yours I've watched. This should give us all hope for new technologies becoming a part of the future.

The exhaust gases carries out energy from the system in 3 forms. 1) Sensible heat, expressed in the temperature of the gases, which the thing will try to recover as much as possible (but no chance to recover fully), 2) Latent heat: any fuel with hydrogen content mixed with air and burned will produce water molecules, and there is significant energy absorbed just in the process of water vaporization (not stored in temperature but in the gaseous state), and this latent heat will be lost unless we have a condenser, 3) Kinetic energy of the outgoing exhaust gases, which could be partially recovered with yet another device, a turbine. I see too many conversions needed to even considering a 60%+ efficiency.

Propane camping light check, solar panel check, save the planet, done 😂

Could this work? My sliver of engineering knowledge says 'Maybe.' But I'm really doubting their claimed efficiency numbers. Build one, Let someone else test it, and I'll believe it.

I like how your mind works on problem solving…. I spent a weekend with a heating engineer who would be great to capture the waste heat from the car engine using phase change materials… so that when you came home, you could dump this heat into your home water storage system. Not as fancy technically as PV but workable…. Until you look at weight being carried around. Still… always great to pull problems apart and see where you end up.

Love your explanations, really helps me understand. Thanks fun video.