New thermogalvanic tech paves way for more efficient fridges
7 comments
·February 1, 2025csours
Avamander
There's not enough heat in the fridge to heat up any significant amount of water.
I would however like to see that waste heat being used for something like dishwashers or just being vented out (instead of into the room that might have to be actively cooled).
idunnoman1222
If we cared about making refrigerators more efficient, we would just put the heat exchanger outside or better yet underground
ggm
10x Improvements in this kind of effect don't happen very often. I'm wondering if a chain of these can "pump" coolth uphill, or if it can be used alongside other methods.
mdorazio
If you're interested in going down a rabbit hole, other thermo tech that always seems to be right around the corner of practicality: thermoacoustic chillers, magnetocaloric fridges.
westurner
"Solvation entropy engineering of thermogalvanic electrolytes for efficient electrochemical refrigeration" (2025) https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(25)00003-0
ChuckMcM
Thanks for that, it's great that its 10x better than the previous best effort. It's notable that it needs to get 20x better again before it starts to have useful applications :-).
Something I've wondered about recently - often times in a kitchen you want hot water and a cold box for food - and lately there are heat pump water heaters available on the market. Is there a fridge/water heater combo yet?