Geometrical Optimization and Thermal-Stability Characterization of Te-Free Thermoelectric Modules Based on MgAgSb/Mg3(Bi,Sb)2
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Contributors
Abstract
Solid-state thermoelectric (TE) technology is a promising approach to harvest low-grade waste heat (<573 K) and converts it to useful electricity in industrial and civilian settings. After decades of efforts in improving the figure-of-merit (zT) of TE materials, the development of advanced modules has started springing up in recent years. Although high-performance modules have been largely reported based on the successful material improvement, it remains less investigated how and whether the module-level designs can further increase the conversion efficiency. Herein, following the recent demonstration of a tellurium (Te)-free TE generator, an increase is demonstrated in the efficiency by reducing both the electrical and thermal energy losses through simply optimizing geometric factors of filling factor and leg-pair numbers. These module-level optimizations enable a record conversion efficiency of 8.2% under a ∆T ≈ 260 K, thus fulfilling 90% of the theoretical efficiency of the materials and solidly exceeding the Bi2Te3 modules. Furthermore, module robustness against > 10 160 thermal cycles while preserving a relative efficiency of 95% is demonstrated. These findings highlight the importance of the optimization strategy at the module level and demonstrate the feasibility of using Te-free thermoelectric compounds to harvest the omnipresent low-grade heat.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2201183 |
Journal | Small |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 24 |
Publication status | Published - 16 Jun 2022 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
PubMed | 35484476 |
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Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- efficiency, module optimization, tellurium-free thermoelectrics, thermal cycling