Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration and Electricity

A stove that uses thermo-acoustic technology to cook and cool, and generates its own electricity. It produces sound waves from heated gas and then converts them to electricity.

Wood is placed inside the stove and burned. The fire heats compressed air that has been pumped into specially shaped pipes located inside the stove's chimney and behind the stove.

The heated air begins to vibrate and produce sound waves. Inside the pipes, the noise is 100 times louder than a jet taking off.

At the end of a pipe, the sound waves vibrate a diaphragm attached to a coil of metal wires sitting inside a magnet. As the wire coil vibrates, about 50 times per second, it generates an electrical current, which is captured by wires and converted to the proper voltage.

The stove has electrical sockets, where homeowners can plug in, for example, a mobile phone for charging. Or they can sell the electricity as a phone-charging service.

For refrigeration, the heated, compressed air is sent through a different part of the pipe, where sound waves cause the air to expand. And as it expands, it cools to a temperature that can produce ice.

It takes about 2 hours of stove use to produce enough ice that will keep the fridge cold for 24 hours. But homeowners have the option of producing more ice to sell for income.

Source: abc.net.auAdded: 19 July 2007