Journal
SMALL
Volume 18, Issue 24, Pages -Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202201183
Keywords
efficiency; module optimization; tellurium-free thermoelectrics; thermal cycling
Categories
Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [453261231]
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Solid-state thermoelectric technology is a promising approach to convert low-grade waste heat into electricity. By optimizing the geometric factors of the modules, the conversion efficiency can be improved, and the feasibility of using Te-free thermoelectric compounds to harvest low-grade heat has been demonstrated.
Solid-state thermoelectric (TE) technology is a promising approach to harvest low-grade waste heat (<573 K) and converts it to useful electricity in industrial and civilian settings. After decades of efforts in improving the figure-of-merit (zT) of TE materials, the development of advanced modules has started springing up in recent years. Although high-performance modules have been largely reported based on the successful material improvement, it remains less investigated how and whether the module-level designs can further increase the conversion efficiency. Herein, following the recent demonstration of a tellurium (Te)-free TE generator, an increase is demonstrated in the efficiency by reducing both the electrical and thermal energy losses through simply optimizing geometric factors of filling factor and leg-pair numbers. These module-level optimizations enable a record conversion efficiency of 8.2% under a increment T approximate to 260 K, thus fulfilling 90% of the theoretical efficiency of the materials and solidly exceeding the Bi2Te3 modules. Furthermore, module robustness against > 10 160 thermal cycles while preserving a relative efficiency of 95% is demonstrated. These findings highlight the importance of the optimization strategy at the module level and demonstrate the feasibility of using Te-free thermoelectric compounds to harvest the omnipresent low-grade heat.
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