Researchers published last year a way to make cheap thermoelectrics that work just as well as the pricey kind, and could pave the way for a new generation of greener car engines, industrial furnaces, and other energy-generating devices. ScienceMagArchives
So-called thermoelectric generators turn waste heat into electricity without producing greenhouse gas emissions, providing what seems like a free lunch. But despite helping power the Mars rovers, the high cost of these devices has prevented their widespread use. Now, researchers have found a way to make cheap thermoelectrics that work just as well as the pricey kind. The work could pave the way for a new generation of greener car engines, industrial furnaces, and other energy-generating devices.
Thermoelectrics are semiconductor devices placed on a hot surface, like a gas-powered car engine. That gives them a hot side and a cool side, away from the hot surface. They work by using the heat to push electrical charges from one to the other. If a device allows the hot side to warm up the cool side, the electricity stops flowing. A device’s success at preventing this, as well as its ability to conduct electrons, feeds into a score known as the figure of merit, or ZT.
So, his team decided to make its thermoelectrics from readily available tin and selenium powders that, once processed, make grains of polycrystalline tin selenide instead of the single crystals. The polycrystalline grains are cheap and can be heated and compressed into ingots that are 3 to 5 centimeters long, which can be made into devices. The polycrystalline ingots are also more robust, and Kanatzidis expected the boundaries between the individual grains to slow the passage of heat.
but also a ZT of 3.1. “This opens the door for new devices to be built from polycrystalline tin selenide pellets and their applications to be explored,” Kanatzidis says.
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