Best thermoelectric efficiency of ever-explored materials

A thermoelectric device is a heat engine that directly converts heat into electricity. Many materials with a high figure of merit ZT have been discovered in the anticipation of a high thermoelectric efficiency. However, there has been a lack of investigations on efficiency-based material evaluation, and little is known about the achievable limit of thermoelectric efficiency. Here, we report the highest thermoelectric efficiency using 12,645 published materials. The 97,841,810 thermoelectric efficiencies are calculated using 808,610 device configurations under various heat-source temperatures (T-h) when the cold-side temperature is 300 K, solving one-dimensional thermoelectric integral equations with temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties. For infinite-cascade devices, a thermoelectric efficiency larger than 33% (approximate to 1/3) is achievable when T-h exceeds 1400 K. For single-stage devices, the best efficiency of 17.1% (approximate to 1/6) is possible when T-h is 860 K. Leg segmentation can overcome this limit, delivering a very high efficiency of 24% (approximate to 1/4) when T-h is 1100 K.

Automated summary

A thermoelectric device that directly converts heat into electricity has been studied in this research. Through calculations using 12,645 published materials, the highest thermoelectric efficiency has been reported. It was found that for infinite-cascade devices, a thermoelectric efficiency larger than 33% is achievable when the heat-source temperature exceeds 1400K. Leg segmentation can further enhance the efficiency, delivering a very high efficiency of 24% when the heat-source temperature is 1100K.