Powering a Cat Warmer Using Bi2Te3 Thin-Film Thermoelectric Conversion of Microprocessor Waste Heat

New thin-film materials offer potentially greater efficiencies when converting heat to electricity using the thermoelectric effect. Applied to microprocessors, this technology can mitigate a number of critical problems in one fell swoop: the dangerous amount of heat produced by laptops [14], [17], climate-change inducing electricity consumption [11], and unhappy house-cats that are insufficiently warm [1]. Figure 2 depicts an apparatus that addresses these three problems comprehensively, by extracting waste heat from a high-end microprocessor, converting the heat to electricity using thin-film technology, and using the resultant current to power a portable cat warmer. The thermoelectric effect discovered by Seebeck in 1822 can be utilized to convert heat differentials into electric voltage [6]. When one end of metal is heated, it behaves like a battery, as the thermal gradient causes the electrons to diffuse and the phonons1 to vibrate. The vibrating phonons preferentially allow some electrons to diffuse towards one end, creating a difference in potential. The efficiency of thermoelectric generators (TEG) is generally low (2-4%), but recent advances in nanotechnology indicate that newer materials can improve the efficiency at least two-fold [5]. TEG made out of new nanomaterials can benefit microprocessors; even a 6W recovery from a 100W processor can be enough to drive the processor cooling fan, power up certain microarchitectural structures, or ensure that house-cats are sufficiently cozy.