Company uses tiny antennas to capture wasted heat

A startup company called RedWave Energy is creating flexible sheets of metal covered in tiny antennas that will be able to turn heat into electricity. If successfully manufactured, it could help turn waste heat from power plants and factories into energy.

The micro antennas work in a similar way as TV and radio antennas do: they capture electromagnetic waves and turn them into electrical signals. However, in this case, the small antennas are tuned to harness the electromagnetic radiation of heat, rather than the frequency of radio waves or microwaves.

RedWave Energy was co-founded by entrepreneurs Jim Nelson and Pat Brady who licensed antenna technology at Idaho National Labs that was built for classified defense applications. The pair is also licensed in electronics technology from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Nelson stated that the company’s antenna tech could be one of the most cost-effective ways to capture heat between 70 and 250 degrees Celsius from factories and power plants.

“There’s really nothing else that can competitively harness that lower temperature heat,” he said.

The company secured a $3 million federal grant from the Department of Energy’s early-stage high-risk energy program called ARPA-E. It will combine that with its new Series B funds – included from JUST Water, The Boston Foundation, and the Energy Foundry – to continue developing the antenna technology.

Capturing waste heat and turning it into electricity is a growing area of interest. Similarly, Alphabet Energy is a company that uses semiconductor materials called thermoelectrics to turn heat into power. It also recently began selling a device that can capture the heat in gas flares and convert it into electricity and can be embedded in vehicle engines and diesel generators.

While this type technology still has a long way to go before it impacts the entire world, RedWave Energy believes it is promising.

Source: Fortune