Thermoelectricity

Low-Dimensional Thermoelectricity

Thermoelectric materials are used as solid-state heat pumps and as power generators. The low efficiency of devices based on conventional bulk thermoelectric materials confines their applications to niches in which their advantages in compactness and controllability outweigh that drawback. Recent developments in nanotechnologies have led to the development of thermoelectric nano-materials with d...

Thermoelectricity in Cnfined Liquid Electrolytes

The electric field in an extended phase of a liquid electrolyte exposed to a temperature gradient is attributed to different thermophoretic mobilities of the ion species. As shown herein, such Soret-type ion thermodiffusion is not required to induce thermoelectricity even in the simplest electrolyte if it is confined between charged walls. The space charge of the electric double layer leads to ...

Revisiting some chalcogenides for thermoelectricity.

Thermoelectric materials that are efficient well above ambient temperature are needed to convert waste-heat into electricity. Many thermoelectric oxides were investigated for this purpose, but their power factor (PF) values were too small (∼10-4 W m-1 K-2) to yield a satisfactory figure of merit zT. Changing the anions from O2- to S2- and then to Se2- is a way to increase the covalency. In this...

Thermoelectricity for future sustainable energy technologies

— Thermoelectricity is a general term for a number of effects describing the direct interconversion of heat and electricity. Thermoelectric devices are therefore promising, environmental-friendly alternatives to conventional power generators or cooling units. Since the mid-90s, research on thermoelectric properties and their applications has steadily increased. In the course of years, the devel...

An Adsorption Chiller Driven by Thermoelectricity