The post headline is BS. It's 70% more efficient than other thermoelectric materials. Not compared to current compressor fridges. Also no device ever can be powered by its ambient temperature, because thermodynamics says no
this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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Thanks it got me confused, seemed so good that it had to be false but the title was also not very clickbaity.
Edit: opened the article anyway, this is the actual title above the article: Thin film thermoelectric cooling built with semiconductor process technology
I think the userbase of a community being clueless enough to tend to upvote anything vaguely good-sounding is a big factor in me eventually deciding to unsubscribe from that community. It doesn't seem like it is a fixable problem once it develops.
It's a big problem with reddit like forums where the comments are highlighted and much more densely presented than the article itself.
Older forums avoided this (unintentionally) by not having any sorting on replies and keeping the density of replies, low.
Hey, it works for the Voyager Space probes! 😏
Looking forward to a Technology Connections video debunking all these claims
He already did. "Thermoelectic cooling: It's not great."
"There's just one little issue with this technology. It's not very good. Like, at all."
TL;DR one side gets hot, while the other gets not very cold
So in order for the very hot side to not heat up the cold side, negating the cooling effect, you have to have a whole water cooled noctua 480mm fan assembly cooling that 2 cm*2 surface, just so that thingy can get to like 10C
Also, it's by definition impossible for it to have better than 100% cooling efficiency, which is already the norm for refrigeration-cycle-driven machines.
There are niche applications where it can be the right answer, but no amount of improvement to this specific technology will ever make this as good as existing refrigerators.
I was looking at the thumbnail and wondering if it was these. Yeah, imma go with Alec on this one.
These are just Peltier cooling mechanisms highly refined it seems. If they've increased the efficiency enough that a full-sized refrigerator can keep food cool without refrigerant or a constant electrical signal, that's huge. AFAIK Peltier coolers still need some electrical input, though minimal.
Peltier is horribly inefficient though.
Efficient enough to run a fan from the heat of my woodstove, so it's got that going for it. And there are 12V coolers people keep in their cars. How efficient does it need to be? If they've improved on standard peltier junctions, maybe it is worth it. Why so negative?
I've used 12v coolers. They don't cool, at best they maintain temp, under the right conditions.
How efficient does it have to be? It needs to at least equal compressors.
They suck and die all the time. It's a money grab upgrade like paint protection coating.
These aren't the same thing as a proper Peltier mechanism as you'd expect it to be implemented with a quality build. These are cheaply built evaporative coolers, not an industrial design.
I've deployed industrial units for outdoor enclosures that run on solar with no battery in places that get up to 115F during the day and do decrease the temp of an enclosure by 15-25F. They aren't cheap, but they do work better than those shitty things referenced in your link.
That's cool. Figured there had to be an industrial option which is always costly. So as soon as cost comes down for consumer grade that'll be nice.
You don't need a peltier for that, a woodstove- stirling engine -powered fan would do just fine.
I'm calling bullshit. There's no way a Peltier element can exceed the coefficient of performance of the refrigeration cycle, at an affordable price, without turning the room into a hothouse.
I’m calling bullshit.
Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature.
I'm not questioning the findings. I'm questioning the article, and your interpretation to arrive at such a summary.
APL plans to continue to partner with organizations to refine the CHESS thermoelectric materials with a focus on boosting efficiency to approach that of conventional mechanical systems
energy-harvesting technologies for applications ranging from computers to spacecraft
70% improvement in efficiency in a fully integrated refrigeration system.
It's all potential, and possibilities, and future projections. I'm sure someone will find real world applications for it, but a fridge tacked out with Peltier tiles that draws energy from its ambient environment (while actively ruining the thermal gradient by the way) is ludicrous.
Umm, a typical refrigerator cranks out a lot of heat. Why would would this be less efficient than that?
Check the efficiency of heat pumps.
Read the paper, it's linked below. This is solid state, there's no refrigerant. Heat pumps are efficient, and this IS a heat pump, which is far more efficient than the old school heat pump that uses a 'refrigeration cycle'. I'm with you on being skeptical, and it may be a long time from 'discovery' to production of a saleable device, but this IS a legit significant breakthrough.
Modern refrigerators only generate heat through the capture by refrigerant inside and the pump circulating air. Without those, it's a different story. A Peltier cooling device works similarly, but I can see it being more efficient overall since you would know where the heat ends up. Think car radiator or CPU heatsink. Same basic concept.
without refrigerant
Yes, they say this does away with the need for compressors or refrigerants.
"This cools by using electrons to move heat through specialized semiconductor materials, eliminating the need for moving parts or challenging coolant liquids."
Yes, that's a Peltier device by definition. The efficiency of them as of now are not great, so the big news here, if reproducible is that they've refined a process that gets them up to 70%.
Huge if true.
I don't mind Samsung TVs, but it'd be a cold day in hell before I ever buy a Samsung appliance. They are shite.
I was not aware of this and bought a Samsung washer and dryer set a few years ago. Noticed one day that the dryer would keep spinning after the cycle ended. Then noticed that it started spinning before I turned the dryer on. I quickly realized that it now spins any time the door is shut, even when off.
Looked online and this is apparently a known mechanical bug in several models due to cheap components. So I can either unplug it or keep the door open anytime it's not in use. Never buying another Samsung either.
Energy efficiency sounds pretty woke to me.
Edit: for those down voting me; Trump Plans to Axe Decades-Old Energy Star Efficiency Program
But how will the poor energy companies profit?!?
Fridges are insanely efficient as it is. Can't wait to see what else this can be used for.
Now if Samsung could only figure out the mysterious science behind making ice.
This would be fucking insane if true and gets scalable. If Samsung has the tech though those assholes are going to upcharge it to a luxury item and we'll never see it.
cool