The most efficient thermoelectric was created
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Chemists from Northwestern University have developed a unique thermoelectric material that converts heat into electricity.
It is the best material of its kind - its efficiency is twice as high as all previously known materials. This discovery can be very important for the development of world industry, given that two-thirds of the energy produced for human needs is lost in the form of heat. The results of the work of researchers are published in the pages of the journal Nature.
According to this article, the new material consists of grains of lead telluride and strontium telluride, as well as a small amount of sodium. This environmentally stable material can convert from 15 to 20 percent of the heat generated in the production of energy into useful electricity.
New material can be used in automotive and heavy industry (for example, in the production of glass, bricks, refineries, coal and gas power plants). In addition, an effective thermoelectric can be used on large ships and tankers, where large internal combustion engines work continuously.
"Our thermoelectric system is the most effective in the world at any temperature," says Mercury Kanatsidis, project manager and lead author of the article in the journal Nature. "This material can convert heat to electricity more efficiently than any other." "We are often asked how to solve the energy saving problem," Vinayak Dravid, a colleague of Kanatsidis, adds, "But there is no universal solution, the solution should be comprehensive." Thermoelectrics can not solve all energy problems, but this is an important part of an integrated approach. "
Thermoelectrics are substances that have the ability to generate electricity at different temperatures in different areas of the material. The effectiveness of such a transformation is determined by two requirements, which in many respects contradict each other. An effective thermoelectric should be as good as possible to conduct electricity and at the same time as best as possible to conduct heat.
A substance with very low resistance will not be an effective thermoelectric if it conducts heat well. To achieve low thermal conductivity with high electrical conductivity, scientists have modified the structure of the material.
The specialists took the classical thermoelectric-lead telluride (PbTe) as a basis and added inclusions of strontium telluride nanocrystals there. They violated the ordered structure of the material, but did not affect the electrical conductivity, and hence its thermal conductivity.
The result has pleased scientists and, probably, soon will please the automobile-building companies, oil refineries and other industrial objects to which new material can help to reduce power inputs.