High-efficiency electrochemical thermal energy harvester using carbon nanotube aerogel sheet electrodes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26837457.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms10600 and PMC identifier 4742963.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Conversion of low-grade waste heat into electricity is an important energy harvesting strategy. However, abundant heat from these low-grade thermal streams cannot be harvested readily because of the absence of efficient, inexpensive devices that can convert the waste heat into electricity. Here we fabricate carbon nanotube aerogel-based thermo-electrochemical cells, which are potentially low-cost and relatively high-efficiency materials for this application. When normalized to the cell cross-sectional area, a maximum power output of 6.6 W m(-2) is obtained for a 51 °C inter-electrode temperature difference, with a Carnot-relative efficiency of 3.95%. The importance of electrode purity, engineered porosity and catalytic surfaces in enhancing the thermocell performance is demonstrated.