New thermoelectric materials and devices for terrestrial power generators

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Thermoelectric, Electrogasdynamic And Other Direct Energy Conversion

Scientific paper

The development of new, more efficient, materials and devices is the key to expand the range of applications of thermoelectric generators. New potential terrestrial applications have been recently described in the literature. There exists a wide range of heat source temperatures for these applications, from low grade waste heat, at 320-350K, up to 80 to 1100K, such as in the heat recovery from a processing plant of combustible solid waste. The automobile industry has also recently developed a strong interest in a waste exhaust heat recovery power source operating in the 375-775K temperature range to supplement or replace the alternator and thus decrease fuel consumption. Because of the relatively small temperature drop across the generator and of the generator mass requirements, it is estimated that values of 1.5 to 2.0 are needed for the dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, in order to develop an economically viable system. Of course, there are other factors besides ZT when considering the potential use of thermoelectrics. For example, most commercial applications also require that the materials have also to be cheap enough, or environmentally friendly to make the thermoelectric power generation a viable option. Due to the need for reductions in the mass, cost and volume of radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) used to power spacecrafts for deep space missions, a search for new advanced materials with ZT values substantially higher than state-of-the-art Si0.8Ge0.2 alloys (ZTSiGe Å 0.65 from 575 to 1275K) was initiated a few years ago at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Recent results on novel materials have demonstrated that ZT values significantly larger than 1.0 could be obtained in the 475 to 975K temperature range. These materials are excellent candidates to be used in terrestrial thermoelectric power generators using waste heat or liquid fuels.

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