Explained: Thermoelectricity

Turning temperature differences directly into

electricity could be an efficient way of harnessing
heat that is wasted in cars and power plants.
David L. Chandler, MIT News Office
April 27, 2010
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Thermoelectricity is a two-way process. It can refer either to the way a temperature

difference between one side of a material and the other can produce electricity, or to the
reverse: the way applying an electric current through a material can create a
temperature difference between its two sides, which can be used to heat or cool things
without combustion or moving parts. It is a field in which MIT has been doing pioneering
work for decades.
The first part of the thermoelectric effect, the conversion of heat to electricity, was
discovered in 1821 by the Estonian physicist Thomas Seebeck and was explored in
more detail by French physicist Jean Peltier, and it is sometimes referred to as the
Peltier-Seebeck effect.
The reverse phenomenon, where heating or cooling can be produced by running an
electric current through a material, was discovered in 1851 by William Thomson, also
known as Lord Kelvin (for whom the absolute Kelvin temperature scale is named), and
is called the Thomson effect. The effect is caused by charge carriers within the material
(either electrons, or places where an electron is missing, known as “holes”) diffusing
from the hotter side to the cooler side, similarly to the way gas expands when it is
heated. The thermoelectric property of a material is measured in volts per Kelvin.
These effects, which are generally quite inefficient, began to be developed into practical
products, such as power generators for spacecraft, in the 1960s by researchers
including Paul Gray, the electrical engineering professor who would later become MIT’s
president. This work has been carried forward since the 1990s by Institute Professor
Mildred Dresselhaus, Theodore Harman and his co-workers at MIT’s Lincoln
Laboratory, and other MIT researchers, who worked on developing new materials based
on the semiconductors used in the computer and electronics industries to convert
temperature differences more efficiently into electricity, and to use the reverse effect to
produce heating and cooling devices with no moving parts.
The fundamental problem in creating efficient thermoelectric materials is that they need
to be good at conducting electricity, but not at conducting thermal energy. That way,
one side can get hot while the other gets cold, instead of the material quickly equalizing
the temperature. But in most materials, electrical and thermal conductivity go hand in
hand. New nano-engineered materials provide a way around that, making it possible to
fine-tune the thermal and electrical properties of the material. Some MIT groups,
including ones led by professors Gang Chen and Michael Strano, have been developing
such materials.
Such systems are produced for the heating and cooling of a variety of things, such as
car seats, food and beverage carriers, and computer chips. Also under development by
researchers including MIT’s Anantha Chandrakasan are systems that use the Peltier-
Seebeck effect to harvest waste heat, for everything from electronic devices to cars and
powerplants, in order to produce usable electricity and thus improve overall efficiency.

Topics:EnergyExplainedMaterials sciencePhysicsThermoelectricity

Comments
Johnson
April 28, 2010

It's outstanding, it could be used to harvest wasted heat from magnets of an aneutronic nuclear
fusion reactor improving overall electricity conversion efficiency to virtually 100 percent.
Bruce Kinzinger
June 1, 2010

As we look around at our world, I am wondering if there might be other, natural temperature
differences that could be tapped into...
Like the different temperature between an attic and the outside air, or between the desert sand on a
hot day and the temperature 3-6 feet down (geo loops would probably be pretty easy to dig, in
sand!), etc. I imagine that extracting energy would result in moderating temperatures on each side. If
that were to occur, it seems that a homeowner might simultaneously expect to get electricity and a
cooler attic in the summer out of the deal. Then, there are the ocean's currents, carrying huge
volumes of cool or warm water into other ocean areas, and industrial processes that use lakes to
cool down their systems could employ cooling/ energy recovery operations, too.
The "Johnson engine" was looking into this a couple years ago -- "paired" fuel cells, where electricity
could be "invested" in the lower temperature environment to pressurize hydrogen, which was to be
circulated to the higher temperature environment, where a greater amount of electricity could be
harvested with another fuel cell, and cycled back to the cool environment.
We might not even need smart grids, if such readily available energy sources could be harnessed.
Mark Schuetz
June 1, 2010
With the advancing state of the art in thermoelectrics, what overall conversion efficiency from heat to
electricity has now been demonstrated in the lab, and how does that compare to theoretical carnot
efficiency?
David Prieto de la Parte
August 10, 2010

No more than 3 to 5% of efficiency. It is really low for commercial Peltier modules.

To achieve Carnott efficiency figure of merit of 3-4 is needed. I think nowadays is less than 1.
Effiency of 100% is impossible, remember the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
:)

Site: http://news.mit.edu/2010/explained-thermoelectricity-0427