This paper aims to evaluate the ability of some well-known bio-inspired metaheuristics for optimal arrangement of thermoelectric cells mounted in a thermal component. In real life applications, proper arrangement of thermoelectric modules plays a pivotal role by maximising the generated electricity. However, some defects such as the increase in total maintenance cost is often associated with th...

Temperature drops at the interfaces between thermoelectric materials and the heat source and sink reduce the overall efficiency of thermoelectric systems. Nanostructured interfaces based on vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) promise the combination of mechanical compliance and high thermal conductance required for thermoelectric modules, which are subjected to severe thermomechanical st...

In the undercooled solidification of pure metals, the dendrite tip velocity has been shown experimentally to have a strong dependence on the intensity of an external magnetic field, exhibiting several maxima and minima. In the experiments conducted in China, the undercooled solidification dynamics of pure Ni was studied using the glass fluxing method. Visual recordings of the progress of solidi...

This paper presents a study of the national electric power, showing the Brazil consumes electricity in a year and how much you could save if thermoelectric modules were used in some industries and new cars and planes to capture and transformation of residual thermal energy into electrical energy. The conclusion appears really attractive economically, given the fact that many processes generate ...

According to different sources, from forty to sixty percent of the overall energy generated in the world today is squandered in waste heat. The existing energy conversion technologies are either close to their efficiency limits or too costly to justify their implementation. Therefore, the development of new technological approaches for waste heat recovery is highly demanded. The field of thermo...

In this paper we review the recently identified p 9 n-type transverse thermoelectrics and study the thermoelectric properties of the proposed candidate materials. Anisotropic electron and hole conductivity arise from either an artificially engineered band structure or from appropriately anisotropic crystals, and result in orthogonal p-type and n-type directional Seebeck coefficients, inducing a...

A new approach to thermoelectric power generation using large area pn-junctions is presented [1]. Thermally generated electron-hole pairs are separated by the built-in potential gradient of the pn-junction. A temperature gradient applied along this pn-junction causes a flux of both carrier types from the hot to the cold region. This principle allows us to use layer structures similar to solar c...

The demand for portable power is large and expanding. Technologies currently available to meet this demand include batteries, fuel cells, thermophotovoltaic (TPV) generators and thermoelectric (TE) generators. Fuel cells and generators offer significantly improved performance over batteries, but issues of fuel processing and miniaturization remain. Microfabrication has the potential to address ...

Thermoelectric plastics are a class of polymer-based materials that combine the ability to directly convert heat to electricity, and vice versa, with ease of processing. Potential applications include waste heat recovery, spot cooling and miniature power sources for autonomous electronics. Recent progress has led to surging interest in organic thermoelectrics. This tutorial review discusses the...

In this work, Au-Bi(2)Te(3) nanocomposite thermoelectric film with a hierarchical sub-micron antireflection quasi-periodic structure was synthesized via a low-temperature chemical route using Troides helena (Linnaeus) forewing (T_FW) as the biomimetic template. This method combines chemosynthesis with biomimetic techniques, without the requirement of expensive equipment and energy intensive pro...