Originally published January 6 2006
Team working on solar-powered heating and cooling system receives three-year extension to improve system performance
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The National Science Foundation has just given researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute a $300,000 grant to continue their work on an intelligent heating and cooling system patented under the name Active Building Envelope (ABE) system.
Today the same team is exploring the likelihood of increasing the system's efficiency and adaptability by reducing it to the micrometer scale.
Developed by Steven Van Dessel, assistant professor of architecture at Rensselaer, the patented Active Building Envelope (ABE) system uses a photovoltaic (PV) system to collect and convert sunlight into electricity.
That power is then delivered to a series of thermoelectric (TE) heat-pumps that are integrated into a building envelope (the walls, windows, and roof).
Depending on the direction of the electric current supplied to the TE heat-pump system, the sun's energy can actively be used to make the inside space warmer or cooler.
The original ABE system uses solar-panels placed on the outside walls or roof of a building.
The miniaturized system would function in a similar fashion to the original, but would use thin-film photovoltaic and thin-film thermoelectric materials instead of bulk components.
The use of thin-film technologies could potentially result in extremely thin (less than 500 �m) ABE-surfaces.
This ease of application would make it possible to seamlessly apply the system to both new and existing building surfaces, rendering conventional air conditioning and heating equipment obsolete, according to Van Dessel.
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Instead, these materials would interact with their environment to direct and control the flow of energy.
"The ABE system could potentially be useful in the development of advanced thermal control systems for use in future space missions for the aerospace industry," says Van Dessel.
A self-heating and cooling prototype of the original ABE system resides on the roof of the Student Union at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
In conjunction with recent advances in the area of nanotechnology and biotechnology, this research may also open the theoretical path toward the development of future ABE materials that operate at the scale of molecules, according to Van Dessel.
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