Photo: iStockLos Angeles: Scientists have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat—an incredibly useful property which may pave the way for systems that convert waste heat from engines and appliances into electric power. According to researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and University of California, Berkeley in the US, electrons in vanadium dioxide can conduct electricity without conducting heat. “For electrons, heat is a random motion. The amount of electricity and heat that vanadium dioxide can conduct is tunable by mixing it with other materials. This enabled researchers to control the amount of heat that vanadium dioxide can dissipate by switching its phase from insulator to metal and vice versa, at tunable temperatures.

Source: Mint January 29, 2017 15:48 UTC