Overclocking is a dear subject here at NH and all of you who are doing it knows that a side effect of overclocking is heat. This makes it extra interesting when you read about a “solid state energy conversion/generation chip“. Simply, a chip that will converts heat into electricity, or freeze down to -200°C when you put electricity to it. The chip is based on the Edison effect, which is simply about the ability of ions to move from a hot surface into vacuum. The problem is that it has to be vacuum the ions move into and that it’s hard creating such a commercial solution.
The company behind this chip, Eneco, has managed to move around this by replacing the vacuum with a thermoelectric that will have a sufficient efficiency to make it possible for ions to move from the hot metal through the “vacuum” to the cold metal.
It is first of all aiming to compete with other thermoelectric solutions, but if it turns out to be successful the computer market is also an interesting target and then mainly the portable market.
