Power Dense Bottoming Cycles for Microturbine Energy Recovery

The United States Navy (USN) is seeking innovative, power dense bottoming cycles for use in conjunction with microturbines. We propose a transformative and innovative, solid-state heat engine, the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter (JTEC, US Patent 7,160,839) as an efficient power generator for advanced waste heat recovery for electricity generation. The JTEC technology was given a 2008 Breakthrough Award by Popular Mechanics and has also been featured in IEEE magazine “Spectrum”. The engine is a direct heat to electric converter and can operate on a very wide range of heat source temperatures. The JTEC, which operates on the Carnot equivalent Ericsson cycle, can efficiently and directly convert thermal energy to electricity. The targeted power output for the bottoming cycle is 10kW at full load with a source temperature of 260°C. Preliminary models suggest that the JTEC can achieve the goals suggested in this solicitation.