Solar to Mechanical Energy Conversion Using a Magnetic–Thermal Engine

摘要

The continually increasing consumption of energy resources and the ecological problems arising from it require involving ecologically pure energy sources, in particular, solar energy, in the fuel-energy balance. Along with well-known photo converters and thermoelectric converters of solar energy, magnetic–thermoelectric engines (MTEs) seem to be rather promising. These devices function based on the phenomenon of the magnetic-phase transition in magnetic materials within the region of the Curie temperature Tc. The calculated efficiency (on the order of 15% [1]) of a magnetic– thermal engine is not lower than that of photoand thermoelectric converters. Nevertheless, the MTEs still have not been applied in renewable power engineering. In order to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to solve a number of scientific and technical problems. In this publication, we propose an efficient solar-tomechanical energy converter. The method is based on the technical implementation of an MTE proposed by the authors in [2].