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Development of integrated two-stage thermoelectric generators for large temperature difference

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Abstract

Multi-stage thermoelectric (TE) modules can withstand a large temperature difference and can be used to obtain a high conversion efficiency. In this study, two-stage PbTe/Bi2Te3 TE modules were developed with an enhanced efficiency through a comprehensive study of device structure design, module fabrication, and performance evaluation. PbTe-based AgPbmSbTem+2 (abbreviated as LAST) is a typically high ZT material, while the corresponding TE module was rarely reported so far. How to utilize LAST to fabricate high efficiency TE modules therefore remains a central problem. Finite element simulation indicates that the temperature stability of the two-stage module for LAST is better than that of two-segmented module. Compared to Cu, Ni, and Ni-Fe alloys, Co-Fe alloy is an effective metallization layer for PbTe due to its low contact resistance and thin diffusion layer. By sintering a slice of Cu on TE legs, pure tinfoil can be used as a common welding method for mid-temperature TE modules. A maximum efficiency (ηmax) of 9.5% was achieved in the range of 303 to 923 K in an optimized PbTe/Bi2Te3 based two-stage module, which was almost twice that of a commercial TE module.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials and Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Jun Pei & BoPing Zhang

  2. State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    LiangLiang Li & JingFeng Li

  3. Huaneng Clean Energy Research Institute, Beijing, 102209, China

    DaWei Liu

  4. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Yu Xiao

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  1. Jun Pei
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  2. LiangLiang Li
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  3. DaWei Liu
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  4. BoPing Zhang
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  5. Yu Xiao
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  6. JingFeng Li
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to BoPing Zhang or JingFeng Li.

Additional information

This work was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB0703600) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11474176). It is very grateful to Mr. Jin-cheng Liao at Shanghai Institute of Ceramics for his help on module performance measurement. It is very thankful to HuaBei Cooling Device Co. for providing the single Bi2Te3 TE module using commercial Bi2Te3 materials.

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Pei, J., Li, L., Liu, D. et al. Development of integrated two-stage thermoelectric generators for large temperature difference. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 62, 1596–1604 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-019-9498-y

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