Nonmechanical Range Extender for Electric Vehicles

摘要

Heat energy is converted to useful electric output by steam de-electrification in closed-system. As micro droplets get charged upon division off macro bodies, their accumulated charges are collected with their kinetic energy. Several similar recent works had shown how large this energy conversion efficiency (23% [1] to 48% [2]) would be and presented design appears as an alternative to mechanical range extenders. This work achieves efficiency exceeding 20% through ignited fuel as input heat energy source. When compared with most efficient range extender -free-piston design (up to 50% [3]), presented work yields higher specific efficiency (Overall efficiency/total weight of unit) by dramatically reducing (more than 60%) the weight of range extender unit.