Giant thermopower of ionic gelatin near room temperature.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32354840.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.aaz5045.
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Abstract
Harvesting heat from the environment into electricity has the potential to power Internet-of-things (IoT) sensors, freeing them from cables or batteries and thus making them especially useful for wearable devices. We demonstrate a giant positive thermopower of 17.0 millivolts per degree Kelvin in a flexible, quasi-solid-state, ionic thermoelectric material using synergistic thermodiffusion and thermogalvanic effects. The ionic thermoelectric material is a gelatin matrix modulated with ion providers (KCl, NaCl, and KNO<sub>3</sub>) for thermodiffusion effect and a redox couple [Fe(CN)<sub>6</sub> <sup>4-</sup>/Fe(CN)<sub>6</sub> <sup>3-</sup>] for thermogalvanic effect. A proof-of-concept wearable device consisting of 25 unipolar elements generated more than 2 volts and a peak power of 5 microwatts using body heat. This ionic gelatin shows promise for environmental heat-to-electric energy conversion using ions as energy carriers.