The new engine gets an efficiency of 100% by using microscopic scale thermal fluctuations, something never before achieved – and which violates the laws of thermodynamics as we know them.
A team of scientists claims to have developed an engine that contradicts more than two centuries of understanding of the thermodynamics laws that have governed physics since Isaac Newton’s time.
The new engine, called “Gambling Carnot ingine” (something like “Free -translated Carnot” was presented in a recently published Physical Review Letters.
According to the study’s authors, the engine gets 100% efficiencysurpassing the second law of thermodynamics, thanks to the functioning of microscopic scale physical processes.
This law of physics determines (so far) that a combustion engine transforms chemical energy at work, but never with 100% yield because part of the energy is always degraded in unused heat.
“We used the term ‘gambling‘Because the way the engine works resembles the form How people play blackjack: Decisions are made in real time, depending on chance and the state of the system, to maximize the gain ”, do the physical Édgar Roldánresearcher at the International Center for Theoretical Physics of Trieste, Italy, and the main author of the study.
“The engine uses chance, as in a card startbut always following rigorous criteria and real -time feedback measures, ”explains Rolón to.
The main secret of the revolutionary motor is that Does not work with steam not even big pistons, but with a tiny plastic particle Suspended in water, trapped and moved by laser rays.
Unlike classic engines, the Gambling Carnot Engine takes advantage of the Natural thermal fluctuations that cause microscopic particles to move randomly.
The system constantly observes the position of the particle and when the proper event —What particle crosses the center of the laser trap before a time limit – the s cycleAutomatically discharge for the next phaseallowing Extract work at no additional energy cost.
This use of chance is inspired by the so-called Maxwell Demónio Paradoxmental experience that seems to refute the second law of thermodynamics, proposed by physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1867.
The paradox describes An imaginary “demonic” beingwhich acts as a “external controller” of a system, separating warm molecules from cold molecules – seeming to violate the laws of physics by spontaneously creating a temperature gradient and extracting useful work.
Gambling Carnot Engine gets andScoil the great moment to intervenejust like the player of blackjack Choose when to stop or ask for letter To earn more with each hand.
The result is that, at the limit of very slow cycles and with sufficient control over the system, The engine converts all thermal energy absorbed in useful work, reaching 100% efficiency theorists.
In practical terms, this technology is limited, for now, to microscopic scale applications, such as the creation of diminished nanomquins or engines in laboratories and in medicine.
But the fact that the experiences and simulations have been performed with real parameters suggests that We could see functional prototypes within a short time.
The main challenge, according to the study authors, will be to develop systems of Detection and control at higher frequencies to 100,000 measurements per second to apply the optimal strategy.
If this paradigm is confirmed in the laboratory, the possibility of obtaining engines or generators that theBetter microscopic disorderIt could revolutionize the efficiency of devices to nanoscale, from biomedical systems to intelligent sensors.
“Our ideas are a proof of concept. But they point to a new generation of efficient nanomquins that challenge classic boundaries, inspiring realistic concepts where it once seemed impossible, ”concludes Rondán.
