No more engine trade-off: Chinese-led design breaks power, efficiency deadlock

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Research paves way for potentially revolutionary advances in energy conversion technologies that could lead to more efficient heat engines

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A paper by scientists including researchers from China and Switzerland said when many small parts of a system work together, they could convert energy more efficiently, offering new possibilities for future engine technology. Photo: Shutterstock

Ling Xinin Ohio

Published: 10:00am, 6 Feb 2025Updated: 10:21am, 6 Feb 2025

A study led by Chinese researchers has challenged the foundations of classical thermodynamics, showing that a heat engine can achieve both maximum power output and high efficiency – something previously considered impossible.

Published last month in Physical Review Letters, their research broke the traditional barrier requiring engines to sacrifice efficiency for power, paving the way for potentially revolutionary advances in energy conversion technologies that could lead to more efficient heat engines.

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The findings could also help scientists enhance tiny biological machines, such as enzymes, by carefully controlling their temperature, and enable artificial cell factories to produce medicine, biofuels and other materials more efficiently.

By designing a simplified engine model with high-energy level degeneracy – where many microscopic states work together – the researchers were able to leverage collective effects and overcome the traditional efficiency-power trade-off, wrote the authors from Beijing Normal University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, among others.

Their study showed that when many small parts of a system worked together, they could convert energy more efficiently, offering new possibilities for future technology.

Heat engines convert heat into mechanical work by exploiting a temperature difference between a hot source and a cold sink. From steam engines to power plants, they all generate motion or electricity by harnessing thermal energy.