Scientists at Seoul and Northwestern Universities have managed to develop a thermoelectric material with the highest efficiency ever found. The study of the material that converts heat into electricity has been going on since 2014 and will now mainly revolutionize thermoelectric power plants
A new thermoelectric material, which was developed by scientists at Seoul National University and Northwestern University, is capable of being superior to any other at converting heat into electricity. The article on the discovery of the material, which promises to revolutionize the power plant market, was published earlier this month.
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Thermoelectric Material
The discovery of the crystalline form of tin selenide occurred in 2014, however the crystal form was not useful to scientists as it was very fragile and had a tendency to chip. So, to achieve the material's high rate of heat-to-electricity conversion, the scientists tried it in its polycrystalline form, which is tougher and can be easily shaped for applications.
However, when doing this process, they found a high thermal conductivity, which is not recommended in a thermoelectric device. The problem encountered by the scientists with the material that could revolutionize the thermoelectric power plant market was oxidation, which occurred in the process and in the starting materials, reducing the performance of the thermoelectric material in the process.
After removing the oxygen, the team achieved oxygen-free tin selenide pellets, resulting in the most efficient thermoelectric material that converts heat into electricity on record.
The promising material and its high performance
The material developed by the scientists, in its polycrystalline form, has enormous performance in several applications, such as being used in the development and construction of high-performance devices, in capturing industrial waste heat to be transformed into electricity, among others.
Capturing heat to be converted into electricity is a great solution to use instead of thermal power plants, heavy manufacturing industries, automobile industries and also in other factories. It is an essential step towards innovation that will impact and revolutionize the industrial sector, given that 65% of the energy produced using fossil fuels is lost as waste heat.
NASA already uses the thermoelectric material
Currently, the tin selenide polycrystal is already being used in Perseverance, a rover of the North American space agency (NASA). However, in the case of the rover, the heat source used on Mars is the radioactive decay of plutonium, where the efficiency of converting heat into electricity is between 4% and 5%. On Earth, the efficiency obtained by the material tends to be even greater if it is used in thermoelectric devices, being able to generate abundant energy savings.
The application of the new material in energy generation should be included in the coming years, when a material with greater performance and a more accessible price is developed.
According to a chemist specializing in the design of new materials at the University of Northwestem, Mercouri Kanatzidis, scientists are focusing on creating an inexpensive material that delivers high performance, propelling thermoelectric devices into widespread application.
