Foreverlight - invention of world significance

[Shannow]

Honestly, I mean it.

Imagine a light that takes ambient heat, and turns it into light forever. No batteries, no energy storage, no needing to leave it out all day to get light at night for an hour or two.

Saw a demo today, and a group of us had discussions with the inventor.

www.foreverlight.com.au

For those of you versed with the laws of physics, it's an absolute mind snap, and the reasons that I say it's an invention of global significance will become evident.

It suck in ambient heat (and stuff like gamma rays etc.) "processes" the energy,and emits visible light.

 

[Gene K]

If it sucks in ambient heat to produce light wouldnt you need more heat to warm the space? I know you would get some back from the light but wouldnt you lose some?

 

[Shannow]

Where does it go ?

the early versions killed bugs by sucking the energy out of them when they landed on them.

 

[Volvo_ST1]

Originally Posted By: Gene K
If it sucks in ambient heat to produce light wouldnt you need more heat to warm the space? I know you would get some back from the light but wouldnt you lose some?


Heat transfer occurs mostly in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. I am certain the ForeverLight is not a "Black Body," which absorbs all radiation that falls on it, simply because the "Black Body" does not exist.

http://www.egglescliffe.org.uk/physics/astronomy/blackbody/bbody.html

So what if a room gets 0.001°F (hypothetical figure) colder due to the ForeverLight? It's too hot here anyway.

 

[Astro14]

Very cool...makes a great safety/back-up light (dark rooms, basments, enclosed spaces, etc.)

But the cost of a sheet is pretty steep...$499 US for a 2' x 2'?

I guess manufacturing Charge-Transfer Associated Photoluminescence Of Rare-Earths Doped Oxide Phosphors into plastic sheets isn't easy or cheap...

 

[Schmoe]

Wow. Light and help keep your house cooler. If it's too good to be true, then it probably is. But, it did say it was made from minerals and oil.....

 

[JHZR2]

I would imagine that "fluorescent" or "glow in the dark" items that dont have a radioactive component do actually "glow" all the time.

They seemingly just absorb photons and then slowly release them as the excitation goes back to a lower energy state.

A material that takes IR in and emits a photon would seemingl not be a stretch. There would likely be some inherent inefficiency changing the wavelength of the energy, but that's OK, I suppose. It would appear that the mass to flux ratio is such that this isnt a big emitter. They seem to indicate so themselves.

 

[calvin1]

"It continuously takes a little heat out of its surrounding environment (usually the air) and converts it into a useful light."

[censored]! [censored]! [censored]! They figured out how to violate the second law of thermodynamics and then used it to make a dim light bulb? The only dim bulb is their investors.


EDIT: and LOL at the board's censorware, it actually makes my post look more adamant than what I typed.

 

[PandaBear]

It is actually very similar (although low efficiency) version of solar panel. The heat or light wave causes action between the PN junction and movement between electrons and electron holes, creating a voltage difference, you know the rest.

Now the problem with this design is you spend a lot of money to get you a bit of light that is temperature dependent. So why not spend the same money to get even more energy in terms of solar panel and connect to the grid to slow down the consumption / reverse the meter during day time, and use the grid at night?

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: calvin1
"It continuously takes a little heat out of its surrounding environment (usually the air) and converts it into a useful light."

[censored]! [censored]! [censored]! They figured out how to violate the second law of thermodynamics and then used it to make a dim light bulb? The only dim bulb is their investors.


EDIT: and LOL at the board's censorware, it actually makes my post look more adamant than what I typed.


It only violate thermodynamics if it is a heat engine, but it is not. It is a semiconductor junction and it has been around since the transistor exists (although extremely inefficient).

 

[calvin1]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
It only violate thermodynamics if it is a heat engine, but it is not. It is a semiconductor junction and it has been around since the transistor exists (although extremely inefficient).
IR photo-voltaic cell>jewel thief> visible LED?

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: calvin1
"It continuously takes a little heat out of its surrounding environment (usually the air) and converts it into a useful light."

[censored]! [censored]! [censored]! They figured out how to violate the second law of thermodynamics and then used it to make a dim light bulb? The only dim bulb is their investors.


EDIT: and LOL at the board's censorware, it actually makes my post look more adamant than what I typed.


It only violate thermodynamics if it is a heat engine, but it is not. It is a semiconductor junction and it has been around since the transistor exists (although extremely inefficient).


Agree.

 

[calvin1]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: calvin1
"It continuously takes a little heat out of its surrounding environment (usually the air) and converts it into a useful light."

[censored]! [censored]! [censored]! They figured out how to violate the second law of thermodynamics and then used it to make a dim light bulb? The only dim bulb is their investors.


EDIT: and LOL at the board's censorware, it actually makes my post look more adamant than what I typed.


It only violate thermodynamics if it is a heat engine, but it is not. It is a semiconductor junction and it has been around since the transistor exists (although extremely inefficient).


Agree.
so explain

 

[JHZR2]

Do you disagree that photoluminescent materials work? They absorb in UV and emit in visible.

Most any material will emit a photoelectron from an x-ray excitation. Its all about electrons moving through different energy states. No different with the PN junction at a high level.

Photoluminescent materials convert blue and UV light to lower energy wavelengths. Electrons in the material are raised to a higher energy state by exposure to light. When the light is removed these electrons revert back to their original energy state, releasing photons in the green-yellow part of the visible light spectrum.

US Patent 4,812,660 is an IR emitter.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1322797

This is a great book:
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&l...ktEeg5_4XQ8OH8o

It is not the most efficient on a photon basis, but it is free upconversion of light. It is kind of like energy recovery. Even if your efficiency is low, if youre using a free energy source does it matter? We arent increasing energy, nature is still moving to a lower energy state overall.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: calvin1
so explain

When you have a semiconductor and dope it with P or N type impurity right next to each other, it becomes a PN junction. This junction create a voltage difference between the 2 end like a battery.

In a nut shell, when it is designed right, it would absorb energy from light or heat and continue this operation until they are balanced, and if you connect an LED in between and the voltage needed to power the LED is lower than the voltage of your PN junction that generates the power (the biggest challenge here because they are usually not), you get yourself a forever light or solar light. Solar light would not be very useful but a heat light would be, hence the forever light.

 

[Shannow]

So in a heat engine analogy, the environment is a sink, but of light energy rather than heat ?

I'm struggling a tad with the stuff.

As to efficiency, he's now working with ambient -0.3C (from -80C to +80C), where his early version used whole degrees (up to tens).

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
So in a heat engine analogy, the environment is a sink, but of light energy rather than heat ?

I'm struggling a tad with the stuff.

As to efficiency, he's now working with ambient -0.3C (from -80C to +80C), where his early version used whole degrees (up to tens).


It is not a heat engine.

Think of it as a perpetual waterfall:

In a neutral material electrons vibrate in all direction randomly, in a junction it is easier to go toward one direction than the other (hence the voltage difference, like a waterfall).

The junction is the waterfall, and it was powered by heat, light, whatever that create the natural vibration of the electrons and knock some of them out of one side and get attracted to the other side, and the water channel as the wire and LED that connect them back to the original starting points so it can go on forever.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear


In a nut shell, when it is designed right, it would absorb energy from light or heat and continue this operation until they are balanced, and if you connect an LED in between and the voltage needed to power the LED is lower than the voltage of your PN junction that generates the power (the biggest challenge here because they are usually not), you get yourself a forever light or solar light. Solar light would not be very useful but a heat light would be, hence the forever light.



But I do not think that this material is creating a potential and then true electron flow due to a PN junction. I believe this material is taking a multi-photon excitation "upconversion" due to the molecular structure of the materials. One material gets excited by a certain wavelength, and some of this vibrational excitation transitions to a different atomic structure, which has a different excitation vibration rate. The vibration quenches as nature tries to maintain a lowest energy state (and the atom doesnt want to throw an electron away due to excess energy if it can avoid it). The release of this energy is light at a different wavelength than the incoming wavelength.

Same basic physics, I guess, just slightly different in practice.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
But I do not think that this material is creating a potential and then true electron flow due to a PN junction. I believe this material is taking a multi-photon excitation "upconversion" due to the molecular structure of the materials. One material gets excited by a certain wavelength, and some of this vibrational excitation transitions to a different atomic structure, which has a different excitation vibration rate. The vibration quenches as nature tries to maintain a lowest energy state (and the atom doesnt want to throw an electron away due to excess energy if it can avoid it). The release of this energy is light at a different wavelength than the incoming wavelength.

Same basic physics, I guess, just slightly different in practice.


They didn't mention what do they use or how do they align it, but they use the term emitter, conduct and collector lead me to think that they are not relying on the natural vibration of molecules (heat) to produce a certain frequency that is absorbed by the phosphate to make a custom color panel.

The coating on plastic panel and the diamond like hardness their material, and that you can heat the plastic and bend it, tell me it is some sort of semiconductor lattice and not a mono crystal.

Most likely it is made by using plasma enhanced CVD by putting different layer of coating on it. Different layer sandwich together into a PN-NP junction where the PN generate a voltage and the NP use the voltage to generate a UV (absorbed by phosphoate to make visible light). The conduit is just some transparent conductor that hook the 2 P together.

Either way, like you said it is the same physics.

 

[JHZR2]

Apparently he synthesized the stuff in a petri dish...

http://www.mudgeeguardian.com.au/news/lo...spx?storypage=1

Was trying to find an MSDS.