Stuff

    Subscribe to our newsletter

    What's Hot
    Gmail

    Gmail has a setting for confidential emails – this is how to use it

    August 19, 2022
    Nandos Pretender

    Nandos rolls out plant-based artificial meat in South Africa

    August 19, 2022
    Huawei

    Huawei brings new foldable, laptops and tablet to SA – meet the Mate Xs 2 and friends

    August 19, 2022
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube SoundCloud
    Trending
    • Gmail has a setting for confidential emails – this is how to use it
    • Nandos rolls out plant-based artificial meat in South Africa
    • Huawei brings new foldable, laptops and tablet to SA – meet the Mate Xs 2 and friends
    • Telkom Lend is how Telkom plans to help out small businesses
    • FNB’s eBucks petrol rewards will conclude at the end of September
    • Adidas’ new solar-charging headphones epitomise sustainability and sound
    • Using Flysafair’s updated WhatsApp check-in is as easy as 1, 2, 3
    • After 45 years, the 5-billion-year legacy of the Voyager 2 interstellar probe is just beginning
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    StuffStuff
    • News
      • App News
      • Business News
      • Camera News
      • Gaming News
      • Headphone News
      • Industry News
      • Internet News
      • Laptops News
      • Motoring News
      • Other Tech News
      • Phone News
      • Tablet News
      • Technology News
      • TV News
      • Wearables News
    • Reviews
      • Camera Reviews
      • Car Reviews
      • Featured Reviews
      • Game Reviews
      • Headphone Reviews
      • Laptop Reviews
      • Other Tech Reviews
      • Phone Reviews
      • Tablet Reviews
      • Wearables Reviews
    • Columns
    • Stuff Guides
    • Podcasts & Videos
      • Videos
      • Stuffed
      • Stuffing Around
      • Tech Byte
      • T2S2
    • Win
    • Subscribe
      • Print
      • Digital
        • Google Play
        • iTunes
        • Download
        • Zinio
    • Stuff Shop
      • Shop Now
      • My Account
      • Downloads
    • Contact Us
      • Get In Touch
      • Advertise
    0 Shopping Cart
    Stuff
    Home » News » A new approach finds materials that can turn waste heat into electricity
    News

    A new approach finds materials that can turn waste heat into electricity

    The ConversationBy The ConversationDecember 17, 2021No Comments5 Mins Read
    The Curiosity Mars rover, launched in November 2011, is powered by a nuclear battery that relies on thermoelectric materials to turn heat from radioactive decay into electricity. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS), CC BY-NC
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    The need to transition to clean energy is apparent, urgent and inescapable. We must limit Earth’s rising temperature to within 1.5 C to avoid the worst effects of climate change — an especially daunting challenge in the face of the steadily increasing global demand for energy.

    Part of the answer is using energy more efficiently. More than 72 per cent of all energy produced worldwide is lost in the form of heat. For example, the engine in a car uses only about 30 per cent of the gasoline it burns to move the car. The remainder is dissipated as heat.

    Recovering even a tiny fraction of that lost energy would have a tremendous impact on climate change. Thermoelectric materials, which convert wasted heat into useful electricity, can help.

    Until recently, the identification of these materials had been slow. My colleagues and I have used quantum computations — a computer-based modelling approach to predict materials’ properties — to speed up that process and identify more than 500 thermoelectric materials that could convert excess heat to electricity, and help improve energy efficiency.

    Making great strides towards broad applications

    The transformation of heat into electrical energy by thermoelectric materials is based on the “Seebeck effect.” In 1826, German physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck observed that exposing the ends of joined pieces of dissimilar metals to different temperatures generated a magnetic field, which was later recognized to be caused by an electric current.

    Shortly after his discovery, metallic thermoelectric generators were fabricated to convert heat from gas burners into an electric current. But, as it turned out, metals exhibit only a low Seebeck effect — they are not very efficient at converting heat into electricity.

    In 1929, the Russian scientist Abraham Ioffe revolutionized the field of thermoelectricity. He observed that semiconductors — materials whose ability to conduct electricity falls between that of metals (like copper) and insulators (like glass) — exhibit a significantly higher Seebeck effect than metals, boosting thermoelectric efficiency 40-fold, from 0.1 per cent to four per cent.

    This discovery led to the development of the first widely used thermoelectric generator, the Russian lamp — a kerosene lamp that heated a thermoelectric material to power a radio.

    Are we there yet?

    Today, thermoelectric applications range from energy generation in space probes to cooling devices in portable refrigerators. For example, space explorations are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators, converting the heat from naturally decaying plutonium into electricity. In the movie The Martian, for example, a box of plutonium saved the life of the character played by Matt Damon, by keeping him warm on Mars.




    In the 2015 film, The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) digs up a buried thermoelectric generator to use the power source as a heater.

    Despite this vast diversity of applications, wide-scale commercialization of thermoelectric materials is still limited by their low efficiency.

    What’s holding them back? Two key factors must be considered: the conductive properties of the materials, and their ability to maintain a temperature difference, which makes it possible to generate electricity.

    The best thermoelectric material would have the electronic properties of semiconductors and the poor heat conduction of glass. But this unique combination of properties is not found in naturally occurring materials. We have to engineer them.

    Searching for a needle in a haystack

    In the past decade, new strategies to engineer thermoelectric materials have emerged due to an enhanced understanding of their underlying physics. In a recent study in Nature Materials, researchers from Seoul National University, Aachen University and Northwestern University reported they had engineered a material called tin selenide with the highest thermoelectric performance to date, nearly twice that of 20 years ago. But it took them nearly a decade to optimize it.

    To speed up the discovery process, my colleagues and I have used quantum calculations to search for new thermoelectric candidates with high efficiencies. We searched a database containing thousands of materials to look for those that would have high electronic qualities and low levels of heat conduction, based on their chemical and physical properties. These insights helped us find the best materials to synthesize and test, and calculate their thermoelectric efficiency.


    Read more: Researchers invent device that generates light from the cold night sky – here’s what it means for millions living off grid


    We are almost at the point where thermoelectric materials can be widely applied, but first we need to develop much more efficient materials. With so many possibilities and variables, finding the way forward is like searching for a tiny needle in an enormous haystack.

    Just as a metal detector can zero in on a needle in a haystack, quantum computations can accelerate the discovery of efficient thermoelectric materials. Such calculations can accurately predict electron and heat conduction (including the Seebeck effect) for thousands of materials and unveil the previously hidden and highly complex interactions between those properties, which can influence a material’s efficiency.

    Large-scale applications will require themoelectric materials that are inexpensive, non-toxic and abundant. Lead and tellurium are found in today’s thermoelectric materials, but their cost and negative environmental impact make them good targets for replacement.

    Quantum calculations can be applied in a way to search for specific sets of materials using parameters such as scarcity, cost and efficiency. Although those calculations can reveal optimum thermoelectric materials, synthesizing the materials with the desired properties remains a challenge.

    A multi-institutional effort involving government-run laboratories and universities in the United States, Canada and Europe has revealed more than 500 previously unexplored materials with high predicted thermoelectric efficiency. My colleagues and I are currently investigating the thermoelectric performance of those materials in experiments, and have already discovered new sources of high thermoelectric efficiency.

    Those initial results strongly suggest that further quantum computations can pinpoint the most efficient combinations of materials to make clean energy from wasted heat and the avert the catastrophe that looms over our planet.

    • Jan-Hendrik Pöhls is a McCall MacBain Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University
    • This article first appeared on The Conversation

    electricity energy featured heat thermonuclear materials
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Tumblr Email
    The Conversation

    Related Posts

    Gmail

    Gmail has a setting for confidential emails – this is how to use it

    August 19, 2022
    Nandos Pretender

    Nandos rolls out plant-based artificial meat in South Africa

    August 19, 2022
    Huawei

    Huawei brings new foldable, laptops and tablet to SA – meet the Mate Xs 2 and friends

    August 19, 2022

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    In The Mag
    Stuff August-September 2022 Latest Issue

    In This Issue – The Women in Tech (August-September 2022) Issue

    By Brett VenterAugust 1, 20220

    August is a pretty special month. It’s the host of International Women’s Day and is…

    2021 Wish List
    wish list Stuff Wish List 2021

    Stuff Wish List: for the tech impaired

    By Duncan PikeDecember 22, 20210

    Are you from the time before being glued to a smartphone was considered normal? Here’s…

    Wishlist DIY Stuff tech

    Stuff Wish List: for the DIY Diehard

    December 21, 2021
    Wish List Gearhead

    Stuff Wish List: For the petrol-soaked gearhead

    December 20, 2021
    outsiders

    Stuff Wish List: for the Outsiders

    December 17, 2021

    Latest Video

    Sonos

    SONOS Roam SL unboxing by Toby Shapshak

    Mini Cooper

    The Mini Cooper SE Electric with Toby Shapshak

    MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbox Six Extraction Edition unboxing

    MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbox Six Extraction Edition unboxing

    Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Unboxing

    Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra unboxing with Toby Shapshak

    Contact

    South Africa's Consumer Tech News Hub

    General: stuff@stuff.co.za
    Subscriptions: stuff@onthedot.co.za or 087 353 1291
    Editorial: 072 735 2614
    Sales: 083 375 2418

    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube SoundCloud

    Subscribe to Updates

    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy & POPI
    • My account
    © 2022 Stuff Group. Designed by Chronon.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.