New Paper: Journal of Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics

Endoreversible Otto Engines at Maximal Power

Zackary Smith, Priyo S. Pal, and Sebastian Deffner

DOI: 10.1515/jnet-2020-0039

Despite its idealizations, thermodynamics has proven its power as a predictive theory for practical applications. In particular, the Curzon–Ahlborn efficiency provides a benchmark for any real engine operating at maximal power. Here we further develop the analysis of endoreversible Otto engines. For a generic class of working mediums, whose internal energy is proportional to some power of the temperature, we find that no engine can achieve the Carnot efficiency at finite power. However, we also find that for the specific example of photonic engines the efficiency at maximal power is higher than the Curzon–Ahlborn efficiency.

J. Non-Equilib. Thermodyn. (published online ahead of print) (2020)