High Efficiency, Cost Effective Thermoelectric Materials/Devices for Industrial Process Refrigeration and Waste Heat Recovery

The development of high-efficiency thermoelectric ,TE, devices represents an opportunity to cost-effectively exploit industrial waste heat and provide industrial process refrigeration. The key to developing these devices is to first develop a TE material with a high figure of merit, ZT. Therefore, this project will develop a low-cost scalable approach for producing a novel class of high-ZT thermoelectric nanocomposites; and build and characterize high-efficiency, cost-effective TE devices that can be applied to industrial process refrigeration and waste heat recovery. Phase I identified the underlying technical issues that govern the fabrication and performance of the TE nanocomposite, and demonstrated a cost-effective approach to produce the material in bulk. Phase II will design, build and test a TE generator utilizing the nanocomposite, in order to demonstrate the benefits at a system level. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Bulk TE nanocomposites should enable the production of high-efficiency, compact TE devices that can be used for space cooling and refrigeration for residential, commercial, and industrial applications. Another application area is in industrial waste heat recovery, in order to harvest the vast amount of waste heat embodied in manufacturing processes: the high-efficiency ZT devices could recycle the waste heat, thereby increasing energy efficiency and simultaneously reducing unfavorable pollutant and vapor emission