New Alloy Becomes Magnetic on Heating

Science
New Alloy Becomes Magnetic on Heating
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This video is short, and really pretty boring if you don’t know what’s going on. Shown is a chunk of new alloy (Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10) that undergoes a phase change, at about 125C, from a nonmagnetic material to one that is strongly magnetic. If you bias the system with an additional, permanent magnet, heating the system past the transition temperature produces an electric current in a nearby coil, thereby converting heat to electricity. The alloy was produced by Vijay Srivastava, Yintao Song, Kanwal Bhatti, and R. D. James at the University of Minnesota and recently published in Advanced Energy Materials. [via adafruit]

10 thoughts on “New Alloy Becomes Magnetic on Heating

  1. Anonymous says:

    :-o       :-}

  2. Anonymous says:

    :-o       :-}

  3. Anonymous says:

    If that heat conversion is tamed, goodbye pollution as all the friction losses in drivelines disappears, resulting in lighter and less expensive vehicles, driven by regenerative motors in the hubs in place of brakes.

  4. Anonymous says:

    If that heat conversion is tamed, goodbye pollution as all the friction losses in drivelines disappears, resulting in lighter and less expensive vehicles, driven by regenerative motors in the hubs in place of brakes.

  5. Dave says:

    Phase-change == large amount of heat input for small temperature change.
    Heat input equates to energy into the system. Induced electrical current out will undoubtably supply much less energy…

    Useful for temperature controlled switches, though.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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