Magnetohydrodynamics in thermal to electric energy conversion

When technologies reach maturity, their energy and power conversion efficiencies can be only improved minimally. Therefore, research efforts need to be invested into finding useful applications for conversion losses, thus improving the systems overall energy consumption. The most common conversion loss manifests itself as waste heat of low-, medium- and high temperatures. This paper aims to introduce an innovative thermal to electric energy conversion system, using magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) at its core. Determined overall efficiencies exceed the efficiencies of thermocouples, the most common thermal to electric energy converter. Furthermore, an MHD prototype is introduced.