A thermoacoustically-driven liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic generation system with a thermal efficiency of 11%
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PUBLIC SUMMARY
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Developed an efficient thermoacoustic generator with high reliability due to the absence of mechanical moving components.
Achieved a record thermal efficiency of 11.0%.
This efficiency improves almost one order of magnitude compared to previously reported values, exceeding that of typical thermoelectric generators.
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ABSTRACT
Thermoacoustically-driven liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic generator (TLMHDG) is promising for reliable power generation, but its potential is limited by poor thermal efficiency due to improper acoustic matching. Here we developed an efficient TLMHDG by integrating a liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic generator into the linear gaseous resonator of a Backhaus-Swift engine, where the acoustic field is relatively robust. In experiments, a thermal efficiency of 11.0% and an average electrical power output of 13.5 W are achieved, at a heating temperature of 885 K. These results show an improvement of almost one order of magnitude in thermal efficiency and a onefold increase in power output compared to previously reported. This work underscores the potential of TLMHDG for efficient and reliable power generation. -
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REFERENCES
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Chen H., Yang Y., Wu T., et al. (2026). A thermoacoustically-driven liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic generation system with a thermal efficiency of 11%. The Innovation Energy 3:100139. https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-energy.2026.100139
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Chen H., Yang Y., Wu T., et al. (2026). A thermoacoustically-driven liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic generation system with a thermal efficiency of 11%. The Innovation Energy 3:100139. https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-energy.2026.100139
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Figure 1.
(A) System structure of the TLMHDG. T-type K thermocouple, p-pressure sensor, AHX-ambient heat exchanger, REG-regenerator, HHX-hot heat exchanger, TBT-thermal buffer tube, AHX2-secondary ambient heat exchanger. (B) Diagram of the lumped-element model of the TLMHDG.
$ \dot{\boldsymbol{W}} $ -
Figure 2.
The effects of the cross section of the liquid metal channel on (A) Resonant frequency f and (B) Pressure amplitude ∣p1∣, where the dashed lines indicate calculated results, while the dots correspond to experimental data. pm=2.0 MPa.
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Figure 3.
Output characteristics of TLMHDG
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Figure 4.
The effects of the mean pressure on (A) Average electrical power output Pavg; (B) Thermal efficiency η , where the length of liquid metal channel is 210 mm and the length of resonant tube is
1400 mm, with K being optimized for highest Pavg. -
Figure 5.
Comparison of thermal efficiency η of TLMHDG in this study with the typical efficiencies of other no-moving-parts technologies, where the solid pentagram is the thermal efficiency when both the heat leakage of the thermal insulation material and internal heat conduction are ignored, while the hollow pentagram is the thermal efficiency when only the heat leakage of the thermal insulation material is ignored. See Heat leakage analysis and Table S5 in the Supplementary Information for detailed derivation.
