Journal
NANO ENERGY
Volume 1, Issue 6, Pages 805-811Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2012.07.013
Keywords
Energy harvesting; Electrical potential; Low-grade heat; Conversion efficiency; Nanofluids
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [11172231]
- Changjiang Scholar Program from Ministry of Education of China
- World Class University program through the National Research Foundation of Korea [R32-2008-000-20042-0]
- DARPA [W91CRB-11-C-0112]
- National Science Foundation [CMMI-0643726, ECCS-1028010]
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Conventional thermoelectric materials have limited capability of scavenging electrical energy from low-grade heat (LGH). Based on the capacitive effect of liquid-solid interface in a nanoconfinement, we investigate a novel energy harvesting mechanism which is based on the thermally sensitive ion/charge distribution of electrolytes confined in nanopores. The mechanism is elucidated using comprehensive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The effective thermal sensitivity, effective figure of merit, and thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency of the nanofiuidic system compare favorably with respect to the conventional thermoelectric materials. The result of a preliminary thermal-to-electrical energy conversion experiment on a nanoporous carbon is presented, to qualitatively show the feasibility of the approach. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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