Porous organic filler for high efficiency of flexible thermoelectric generator

Sung Jin Jung, Joonchul Shin, Sang Soon Lim, Beomjin Kwon, Seung Hyub Baek, Seong Keun Kim, Hyung Ho Park, Jin Sang Kim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Flexible thermoelectric modules (TEMs) are often built with a polymer filler as structural support. However, the filler may serve as a thermal bypass, leading to reduced temperature difference across a TEM and degradation of the output. Herein, we present flexible TEMs made of porous PDMS fillers and Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric legs. The heat conduction through the filler is suppressed by leveraging the low thermal conductivity of porous PDMS (0.08 W/m∙K), leading to an increase in the temperature difference across the TEMs. The porous PDMS TEM exhibits 23% enhanced power density and a figure of merit (ZT) of 0.75 around the room temperature. Lastly, the efficacy of the porous PDMS TEM is demonstrated by testing the TEMs with body heat. Our approach would offer a promising insight into the flexible TEM designs.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105604
JournalNano Energy
Volume81
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021 Mar

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by R&D Convergence Program of NST ( National Research Council of Science and Technology No. CAP-14-01-KIST ) of Republic of Korea, and Creative Materials Discovery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by Ministry of Science and ICT ( NRF2020M3D1A111049911 ).

Funding Information:
This work was supported by R&D Convergence Program of NST (National Research Council of Science and Technology No. CAP-14-01-KIST) of Republic of Korea, and Creative Materials Discovery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF2020M3D1A111049911).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • Materials Science(all)
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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