Traditional power generation with a turbine may be inefficient, costly or inconvenient. The improvement disclosed herein involves the use of two fluids. A pressurizing fluid is vaporized, pressurized and fed into a pressure cylinder holding a liquid working fluid. The pressurizing fluid forces the working fluid out of the pressure cylinder and through a liquid turbine to generate electricity or perform work. The working fluid is recycled from the turbine into another pressure cylinder for re-use. The pressurizing fluid is condensed and then also recycled back to the evaporator where it is vaporized and pressurized again. Use of a liquid rather than gas turbine makes for improved efficiency and lower cost. The use of a separate pressurizing fluid, which may be volatile, allows for convenient use where the temperature of the thermal source is limited.

An apparatus includes multiple tanks each configured to receive and store a liquid refrigerant under pressure. The apparatus also includes one or more insulated water jackets each configured to receive and retain water around at least part of an associated one of the tanks. The apparatus further includes at least one generator configured to receive a flow of the liquid refrigerant and to generate electrical power based on the flow of the liquid refrigerant. The apparatus also includes one or more first valves configured to control the flow of the liquid refrigerant between the tanks and through the at least one generator. In addition, the apparatus includes one or more second valves configured to control a flow of the water into and out of the one or more insulated water jackets.

A high-efficiency power generation system includes: at least one first heat exchanger, inside which is full of a liquid actuating medium with a low boiling point; a hydraulic power generator; a gas-liquid recycling device; a liquefying device and a control device. The present disclosure accomplishes a recirculation for an entire power generating procedure through two steps including vaporization and a recycle of the actuating medium with a low boiling point by liquefaction. A technical difficulty in the conventional art that huge costs for realizing recycle of the actuating medium by a compressor, a booster pump, etc. can be overcome. In addition, since the present disclosure generate power through the liquid pressure rather than the gas pressure, the conversion efficiency can be improved and the requirement for performance of material for the system can be lowered, so that the economical efficiency and practicability for the entire system are highly improved.

This invention presents a method for conversion of heat to electrical power through absorption of heat from any types of fluids with temperatures both higher and lower than 0° C. Heat can be absorbed from fossil or renewable energy resources. The mechanism in this invention uses fluid internal energy and enthalpy difference to generate power, where a reciprocating piston-cylinder system provides the required force to rotate a turbine for power generation.

The present invention concerns a method of utilising the waste heat contained in the exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine, comprising a turbine (20). To provide an apparatus and a method of operating same which directly supplies additional drive energy which otherwise would be lost as waste heat, it is proposed according to the invention that the turbine is an inverse turbine connected downstream of the exhaust gas outlet of the internal combustion engine and comprising at the inlet side an expansion stage (23) and at the outlet side a subsequent compressor (21), wherein the expansion stage and the compressor of the inverse turbine are so designed that the downstream-disposed compressor of the inverse turbine generates at the outlet of the expansion stage (23) a reduced pressure (p1) below the ambient pressure (p0), wherein the outlet (2b) of the compressor (21) is at the level of the ambient pressure and the compressor of the inverse turbine is driven by the turbine.

Embodiments provide a system and method for harvesting solar thermal energy. According to at least one embodiment, there is provided a system which includes an absorption module, a storage module, and a flow control module. The absorption module retains a working fluid in a substantially constant volume and facilitates absorption of solar thermal energy in the working fluid. The storage module is fluidically coupled to the absorption module and is spatially positioned such that working fluid stored therein has higher gravitational potential energy relative to that stored in the absorption module. The flow control module permits passage of the working fluid from the absorption module to the storage module based on pressure of the working fluid in the absorption module exceeding a predefined threshold. When the working fluid transfers from the absorption module to the storage module, the thermal kinetic energy of the working fluid is transformed into gravitational potential energy thereof.

A transient liquid pressure power generation system can include a liquid source and a transient pressure drive device fluidly coupled to the liquid source. The transient pressure drive device can include a drive component, and a valve to cause a high pressure transient wave in the liquid traveling toward the liquid source to operate the drive component. The system can also include a liquid velocity continuation component downstream of the transient pressure drive device and a bypass conduit. Additionally, the system can include a heat source to receive liquid from the transient pressure drive device and heat liquid returning to the liquid source. The liquid velocity continuation component can operate to maintain continuous liquid flow from the liquid source to the heat source from the transient pressure drive device or the bypass conduit to cause immediate maximum liquid flow velocity from the transient pressure drive device upon opening the valve.

Apparatus for extracting useful work or electricity from low grade thermal sources comprising a chamber, a source of heated dense heat transfer fluid in communication with the chamber, a source of motive fluid in communication with the chamber, wherein the motive fluid comprises a liquid phase, a flow control mechanism cooperating with the source of heated dense heat transfer fluid and with the source of motive fluid to deliver said fluids into the chamber in a manner that said fluids come into direct contact with each other in the chamber to effect a phase change of the motive fluid from liquid to gas to increase the pressure within the chamber to yield pressurized fluids, and a work extracting mechanism in communication with the chamber that extracts work from the pressurized fluids by way of pressure let down.

Systems, apparatuses and methods in interoperating with multiple clean energy sources, such as pneumatic energy, electrical energy, hydrogen energy and steam energy, with engine configurations employing theses clean energy sources dynamically and synchronously. Further embodiments including fossil fuel energies.

A system for the generation of mechanical or electrical energy from heat energy, where increasing a height or pressure in a liquid chamber of the system containing a liquid increases an efficiency of the system up to a hundred percent or increases such efficiency until a critical temperature or pressure of the vapor (gas) is reached at the bottom of liquid chamber or in the boiler of the system depending upon the increment in height, pressure and the type of liquid used in the system. An increase in height of the system for such increased efficiency can be adjusted to a smaller height by maintaining a series of liquid and gas chambers where the vapor flows through the series of chambers or by adding pressure valves. The heat energy from high to low temperature sources can be convened to mechanical and electrical energy.