Nano-engineering enabled heat pipe battery: A powerful heat transfer infrastructure with capability of power generation

Abstract

Low-grade electronic waste heat lower than 100 °C widely exists in information technology equipment. Waste heat from data centers is particularly concerning. A micro heat engine (or Carnot battery) that is suitable for the direct recovery of low-grade waste heat during the cooling of electronic devices is promising. In this study, a novel looped heat pipe battery (LHPB) was proposed to achieve the aforementioned function. By absorbing heat through the evaporator of the proposed LHPB, the working fluid was transformed into high-speed vapor and blasted the generator rotor sealed in the LHPB condenser, which directly converted waste heat into electricity. The proposed LHPB can realize excellent thermal management and effective waste heat recovery simultaneously. The experimental results revealed that under the heat load of 150 W with a rated 12 V fan cooling, the device can maintain the temperature of the heat source at 72 °C, and the maximum output electrical power is 6.19 mW. The nominal power usage effectiveness is lower than 1.01. Even though the generated electrical power is still low in the present form, this pioneering study might open novel avenues for electronic cooling and waste heat recovery.