Demonstration of a high power density electro-caloric heat engine

Attempts at large scale power conversion using the electro-caloric effect have advanced slowly, having ups and downs. One of the downs was the “proof” by Van der Ziel1 in 1974 that conversion efficiency could never rise above 0.025%, that power density would be miniscule and that output impedance would be enormous. Since then it has been argued that each of these conclusions is incorrect2; the present paper shows it experimentally. One of the ups was the work of Pulvari and Garcia reported at this conference in 1975 where constant temperature heat rejection was shown to improve efficiency.