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Micromachines
Special Issues
Sustainable Energy Harvesting: New Generation of Thermoelectric Materials and Devices
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Sustainable Energy Harvesting: New Generation of Thermoelectric Materials and Devices

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "D：Materials and Processing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 3783

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Mercè Pacios

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Advanced Materials for Energy Applications, Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC), C/Jardí de les Dones de Negre 1, Planta 2, 08930 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: nanomaterial synthesis and functionalization; applied environmental technologies; such as (bio)sensors; thermoelectricity; Internet of Things
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Many emerging technologies, from wearable to healthcare devices, smart homes to smart cities, are progressing towards the use of cost-effective transistors and electronic circuits that can function with minimal energy use, providing solutions for future sustainable society. However, economic and environmental impacts due to large-scale battery use remain a major challenge. Under this context, thermoelectric materials (TE) are called to be a boon to the development of energy harvesting technologies from ambient sources that can help to overcome the aforementioned powering problems.

Traditional research on thermoelectric materials is focused on improving the figure-of-merit zT to enhance the energy conversion efficiency. However, other factors such as environmentally friendliness, cost-effective materials, availability, recyclability, thermal stability, chemical and mechanical properties and ease of fabrication have become important for making it a viable technology.

Accordingly, this Special Issue seeks to showcase research papers, short communications, and review articles that focus on: (1) new generation of highly performing cost-effective and eco-friendly thermoelectric materials; (2) novel approaches in low-cost/large scale of micro- and nano-manufacturing of TE materials and devices; (3) advanced non-conventional efficient and sustainable thermoelectric generators (TEGs) for long-term self-powered applications and Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

Looking forward to receiving your submissions!

Dr. Mercè Pacios
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Thermoelectricity
  • Micro- and nano-manufacturing
  • Thermoelectric generators (TEG)
  • Internet of Things
  • Environmental friendliness

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3201 KiB  
Article
Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
by Jianfei Chen, Wei Xie, Min Dai, Guorong Shen, Guoneng Li and Yuanjun Tang
Micromachines 2022, 13(1), 107; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/mi13010107 - 10 Jan 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1478
Abstract
In order to utilize waste heat from passenger vehicles by a thermoelectric generator (TEG), a lab-scale TEG with a sufficient low-pressure drop was designed and tested. The waste heat from a 2.0 L petrol engine was simulated by using an air-circulation channel with [...] Read more.
In order to utilize waste heat from passenger vehicles by a thermoelectric generator (TEG), a lab-scale TEG with a sufficient low-pressure drop was designed and tested. The waste heat from a 2.0 L petrol engine was simulated by using an air-circulation channel with an adjustable electric heater and a speed control motor. The TEG consisted of an integrated molding designed aluminum-finned heat collector, twenty thermoelectric modules, and a set of water-cooled heat sinks. Experiments were conducted in terms of power load feature, pressure drop, heat collection efficiency, thermoelectric efficiency and overall efficiency. It was found that the hot-end temperature was much lower (46.9%) than the flue gas temperature because the trade-off between fin area and pressure drop had to be considered. The obtained maximum electric power was 36.4 W, and the corresponding pressure drop was 36 Pa. The corresponding heat collection efficiency was 46.5%, and the thermoelectric efficiency was 2.88%, which agreed well with the theoretical prediction of 3.38%. As a result, an overall efficiency of 1.21% was reached. The present work firstly demonstrated a waste-heat-recovering TEG prototype with a balanced overall efficiency of over 1%, and a pressure drop of less than 50 Pa. On the other hand, the maximum electric power was difficult to fully extract. The charging power to a battery with a maximum power point tracking direct current–direct current converter was experimentally verified to work at a much higher conversion efficiency (15.3% higher) than regular converters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Energy Harvesting: New Generation of Thermoelectric Materials and Devices)
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14 pages, 4250 KiB  
Article
Performance Assessment of Thermoelectric Generators with Application on Aerodynamic Heat Recovery
by Xiaodong Jia, Shifa Fan, Zhao Zhang and Hongbiao Wang
Micromachines 2021, 12(11), 1399; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/mi12111399 - 14 Nov 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1763
Abstract
Based on thermoelectric generators (TEGs), an aerodynamic heat energy recovery system for vehicle is proposed. A mathematical model describing the energy conversion law of the system is established, and the integrated calculation method which combined aerodynamic heating and thermoelectric (TE) conversion is given. [...] Read more.
Based on thermoelectric generators (TEGs), an aerodynamic heat energy recovery system for vehicle is proposed. A mathematical model describing the energy conversion law of the system is established, and the integrated calculation method which combined aerodynamic heating and thermoelectric (TE) conversion is given. Furthermore, the influences of the typical flight Mach number, flight altitudes and the length of TE legs on the energy conversion behavior of energy recovery systems are investigated. The performance of the energy recovery system is analyzed and evaluated. The results show that, the decrease of flight altitude and the increase of Mach number will obviously improve the performance of the heat energy recovery system with TEGs. The increase of leg length will increase the temperature of the hot end of TEGs and reduce the heat absorbed at the hot end. When the external load, Mach number and flight altitude is fixed, there exists an optimal length of legs corresponding to the maximum output power and maximum conversion efficiency of the system. The results will have significant positive impact on thermal protection and management of supersonic/hypersonic vehicles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Energy Harvesting: New Generation of Thermoelectric Materials and Devices)
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