Are 55% Efficient Peltier Coolers Using Vacuum Technology Real?

[christian everett]

A company claims to have developed Peltier coolers that are 55% efficient by using a hard vacuum as the separate zone between cold and hot.

. I can´t get them to respond to me. Is it a scam? If these devices actually work why haven´t we seen any in consumer devices?

 

[russ_watters]

A company claims to have developed Peltier coolers that are 55% efficient by using a hard vacuum as the separate zone between cold and hot...

I can´t get them to respond to me. Is it a scam? If these devices actually work why haven´t we seen any in consumer devices?

Based on a quick google and a generous characterization, I'll call them a company that has a technology that failed to live up to its promise. The company appears to be or about to be defunct and has been advertising their technology for so long that if they had it patented, the patent would have run out by now.

 

[NTL2009]

I don't know much about semiconductor fab, but a Peltier relies on a PN junction, and it seems to me if you have a vacuum there, you don't have a junction. Maybe they have some way around that, but based on russ_water's findings, probably not?

At any rate, 55% "efficiency" sounds like a Coefficient of Performance (a measure of how much energy is moved compared to the energy used to move it) of 0.55. Compressors typically have COPs >1, and often > 3 . Though Peltiers have advantages in size, weight and fewer moving parts (fans or pumps are often used to dissipate the heat from the Peltier).