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Updated: Oct 7, 2025

Asymmetric Thermoelectrochemical Cell for Harvesting Low-grade Heat under Isothermal Operation
Published on: February 5, 2020
A record thermoelectric efficiency in tellurium-free modules for low-grade waste heat recovery
Zhonglin Bu1, Xinyue Zhang1, Yixin Hu1
1Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji Univ., 4800 Caoan Rd., Shanghai, 201804, China.
Abstract:
Low-grade heat accounts for >50% of the total dissipated heat sources in industries. An efficient recovery of low-grade heat into useful electricity not only reduces the consumption of fossil-fuels but also releases the subsequential environmental-crisis. Thermoelectricity offers an ideal solution, yet low-temperature efficient materials have continuously been limited to Bi2Te3-alloys since the discovery in 1950s. Scarcity of tellurium and the strong property anisotropy cause high-cost in both raw-materials and synthesis/processing. Here we demonstrate cheap polycrystalline antimonides for even more efficient thermoelectric waste-heat recovery within 600 K than conventional tellurides. This is enabled by a design of Ni/Fe/Mg3SbBi and Ni/Sb/CdSb contacts for both a prevention of chemical diffusion and a low interfacial resistivity, realizing a record and stable module efficiency at a temperature difference of 270 K. In addition, the raw-material cost to the output power ratio in this work is reduced to be only 1/15 of that of conventional Bi2Te3-modules.
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