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I’m just tempering the headline, not throwing doubt at the research and development possibilities.
I got excited about the headline, thinking they’d experimentally achieved ore-melting temperatures with a heat pump (“Ultra-hot heatpump breakthrough paves the way […]”).
I guess I perceive 270°C as below the threshold of “ultra hot”.
Later in the article it’s revealed that the breakthrough experiment is paving the way to the (as yet unrealised) ultra-hot (“Luo summarised various research fronts […] promising pathways towards the realisation of ultra-high-temperature heat pumps.”)
Still – 270°C! Commercial/domestic baking ovens when?
Probably yet another overblown headline.
Does anyone have access to the full text of the paper?
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adv7434
Abstract
Large-scale generative artificial intelligence (AI) is facing a severe computing power shortage. Although photonic computing achieves excellence in decision tasks, its application in generative tasks remains formidable because of limited integration scale, time-consuming dimension conversions, and ground-truth-dependent training algorithms. We produced an all-optical chip for large-scale intelligent vision generation, named LightGen. By integrating millions of photonic neurons on a chip, varying network dimension through proposed optical latent space, and Bayes-based training algorithms, LightGen experimentally implemented high-resolution semantic image generation, denoising, style transfer, three-dimensional generation, and manipulation. Its measured end-to-end computing speed and energy efficiency were each more than two orders of magnitude greater than those of state-of-the-art electronic chips, paving the way for acceleration of large visual generative models.
For over a century, the dream of efficiently concentrating low-grade heat into high-temperature industrial energy has been constrained by a stubborn ceiling: 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit).
Now, a team from China has shattered that temperature limit. Using a revolutionary heat pump with no moving parts, they achieved an output of 270 degrees with a 145-degree heat source to drive the cycle.
…so a modest but significant improvement has been achieved, but nowhere near the temps required for melting ore.
But maaaaybe, theoretically, with materials and technologies not yet developed, possibly by 2040:
In a December 5 article in Nature Energy, Luo summarised various research fronts, including his team’s thermoacoustic Stirling heat pump, as promising pathways towards the realisation of ultra-high-temperature heat pumps.
He also suggested development directions for materials and technologies needed for future ultra-high-temperature heat pumps operating from 600K to 1,600K, or 327 degrees to 1,327 degrees, saying these could be achieved by 2040.
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The HK company’s brandingdesign/branding was licensed to a manufacturer nominally based in Europe.
Edit: many sources, but here’s one: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trail-mystery-woman-whose-company-licensed-exploding-pagers-2024-09-20/
So… I really don’t know chemistry, and these aren’t the highest quality references, but here goes:
- 4 mol of iron in a heat pack provides 1648.4 kJ of heat. [1]
- 4 mol of iron weighs 223g. [2]
- Recycling 1000kg of steel saves 642 kWh of energy. [3]
- Recycling 0.223kg steel saves 642 * 0.223 / 1000 = ~ 0.143 kWh
- 0.143 * 3600 = 515 kJ
Huh. So maybe heat packs are a reasonable use of scrap iron’s embodied energy after all. Assuming you have a sufficient source of uncontaminated steel filing waste and that it’s economical to collect and process into heat packs.
…But only if you’re heating your water using fossil fuels using an inefficient method! If your water is heated using solar or waste heat capture or a heat pump[4], which would swing the balance way over to hot water bottles again.
You’re not considering the energy required to smelt the iron.
Iron filings (in a collected quantity high enough to make manufacturing these heat packs worthwhile) are not a waste product, they are recycled – saving the smelting of that much new iron.
Sawdust+iron heat packs are a very useful and non-hazardous product, for sure, but aside from situations where a hot water bottle is impractical, hot water bottle still wins.
Thermoacoustics.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbenv.2023.06.006