Revision as of 11:10, 20 May 2014

Entropomechanical converters store energy by converting the sorage medium in a lower entopy form ore vice versa. They use energy storage cells containing an appropriate medium that's only partially in machine phase. They are a subclass of molecular power mills. Chemomechanical converters like radical batteries use similar zip style reactor cells.

Entropic Batteries

An entropic battery may be implemented with a set of linear alkane molecules which are on both sides bond to handles. Those handles can be either pulled apart and fixated at their maximum separation thereby stretching the alkane completely straight or put together rather close allowing the alkane great freedom of movement.

        H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H
        | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  
Handle1-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-Handle2
        | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
        H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H

In the nano-comos every degree of freedom absorbs a quantum of energy that is proportional to the environments temperature (this energy is E = 3/2kT; see equipartition theorem). When the alkanes are completely stretched they have only a few degrees of freedom (DOFs) and store less thermal energy than in a natural unconstrained state. When the alkanes are contracted and chaotically curled up they provide many DOFs and store a maximal amount of thermal energy.

At non-zero temperatures the alkanes pull the handles together. So to draw energy from your battery you simply remove the handles from their locked positions and let them drive your workload. The emerging DOFs in the alkanes suck up the thermal energy of the environment effectively cooling the battery down. The reason behind this seemingly paradox behavior is that not the total energy but the Gibbs free energy is subject to minimization. Some more information can be found here: "rubber elasticity" and here: "entropic force"

To store energy into the entropic battery all the handles are pulled apart. The thermal energy is effectively wrung out out of the alkanes increasing the environments temperature.

Expected features of entropic batteries:

• recyclability: potentially excellent - depends on AP - system design
• durability: probably acceptable - carbon chains are especially sensitive to radiation damage - too fast charging can lead to thermal destruction
• measurability: excellent - one can count used handle pairs - zero self discharge
• power density: probably good - power extraction is limited by self cooling
• efficiency: probably acceptable for some applications - significant thermal losses since it's an inherent thermal process
• energy density: probably mediocre
• recource consumption: absolutely no scarce elements are needed
• health hazards: probably very low - no heavy metals are used
• danger (when crushed): inherently safe since it freezes when shorted - the use of silicone polymers would make it even safer.

Note that mechanosynthesis of the needed floppy polymers is beyond basic capabilities of productive APM systems and will require specialized tools.