English

Thermo-charged capacitors and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

General Physics 2012-12-07 v6

Abstract

In this Letter we describe a vacuum spherical capacitor that generates a macroscopic voltage between its spheres harnessing the heat from a single thermal reservoir at room temperature. The basic idea is trivial and it makes use of two concentric spherical electrodes with different work functions. We provide a mathematical analysis of the underlying physical process and discuss its connections with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0904.3188,
  title  = {Thermo-charged capacitors and the Second Law of Thermodynamics},
  author = {Germano D'Abramo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.3188},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

13 pages, 3 figures. Few minor typos fixed. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:0902.3590