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A record thermoelectric efficiency in tellurium-free modules for low-grade waste heat recovery.

Author(s) : BU Z., ZHANG X., HU Y., CHEN Z., LIN S., LI W., XIAO C., PEI Y.

Type of article: Periodical article

Summary

Low-grade heat accounts for >50% of the total dissipated heat sources in industries. An efficient recovery of low-grade heat into useful electricity not only reduces the consumption of fossil-fuels but also releases the subsequential environmental-crisis. Thermoelectricity offers an ideal solution, yet low-temperature efficient materials have continuously been limited to Bi2Te3-alloys since the discovery in 1950s. Scarcity of tellurium and the strong property anisotropy cause high-cost in both raw-materials and synthesis/processing. Here we demonstrate cheap polycrystalline antimonides for even more efficient thermoelectric waste-heat recovery within 600 K than conventional tellurides. This is enabled by a design of Ni/Fe/Mg3SbBi and Ni/Sb/CdSb contacts for both a prevention of chemical diffusion and a low interfacial resistivity, realizing a record and stable module efficiency at a temperature difference of 270 K. In addition, the raw-material cost  to the output power ratio in this work is reduced to be only 1/15 of that of conventional Bi2Te3-modules.

Details

  • Original title: A record thermoelectric efficiency in tellurium-free modules for low-grade waste heat recovery.
  • Record ID : 30029225
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: Nature Communications - 13
  • Publishers: Springer Nature
  • Publication date: 2022/01
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27916-y

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