TPGs require a heat source, a thermoelectric material that converts heat to electricity, and a power generator. Such devices could be used to recycle heat from power plants or motor vehicles, and could even find use in solar energy conversion. Current research is focused on improving the conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials but, to date, all proposed designs are either difficult to scale up or uneconomical to produce commercially. Yan Yan and Jonathan Malen at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are aiming to solve these problems and have instead focused on changing the type of heat source used.
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Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…
Periodic heating amplifies the efficiency of thermoelectric energy conversion
Yan Yan and Jonathan A. Malen
Energy Environ. Sci., 2013,6, 1267-1273
DOI: 10.1039/C3EE24158K
