With advancements in thermoelectric technology, in future, you could run your air conditioner using sun’s heat instead of conventional electricity.
Thermoelectric devices are made from materials that can convert a temperature difference into electricity, without requiring any moving parts — a quality that makes thermoelectrics a potentially appealing source of electricity.
The phenomenon is reversible: If electricity is applied to a thermoelectric device, it can produce a temperature difference. Today, thermoelectric devices are used for relatively low-power applications, such as powering small sensors along oil pipelines, backing up batteries on space probes, and cooling minifridges.
But scientists are hoping to design more powerful thermoelectric devices that will harvest heat — produced as a byproduct of industrial processes and combustion engines — and turn that otherwise wasted heat into electricity.
However, the efficiency of thermoelectric devices, or the amount of energy they are able to produce, is currently limited.
Now researchers at MIT have discovered a way to increase that efficiency threefold, using “topological” materials, which have unique electronic properties.
“We’ve found we can push the boundaries of this nanostructured material in a way that makes topological materials a good thermoelectric material, more so than conventional semiconductors like silicon,” says Te-Huan Liu, a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “In the end, this could be a clean-energy way to help us use a heat source to generate electricity, which will lessen our release of carbon dioxide.”
“In our simulations, we found we can shrink a topological material’s grain size much more than previously thought, and based on this concept, we can increase its efficiency,” Liu says.
“I think topological materials are very good for thermoelectric materials, and our results show this is a very promising material for future applications,” Liu says.
News Source: http://news.mit.edu/2018/topological-materials-turning-heat-electricity-0117
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