Stretchable Nanolayered Thermoelectric Energy Harvester on Complex and Dynamic Surfaces

Yang Yang; Hongjie Hu; Zeyu Chen; Ziyu Wang; Laiming Jiang; Gengxi Lu; Xiangjia Li; Ruimin Chen; Jie Jin; Haochen Kang; Hengxi Chen; Shuang Lin; Siqi Xiao; Hanyu Zhao; Rui Xiong; Jing Shi; Qifa Zhou; Sheng Xu; Yong Chen

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01225

Stretchable Nanolayered Thermoelectric Energy Harvester on Complex and Dynamic Surfaces

Nano Lett. 2020 Jun 10;20(6):4445-4453. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01225. Epub 2020 May 7.

Authors

Yang Yang¹, Hongjie Hu², Zeyu Chen³, Ziyu Wang⁴, Laiming Jiang⁵, Gengxi Lu⁶, Xiangjia Li⁷, Ruimin Chen⁶, Jie Jin⁸, Haochen Kang⁶, Hengxi Chen⁹, Shuang Lin⁹, Siqi Xiao⁹, Hanyu Zhao¹⁰, Rui Xiong¹¹, Jing Shi¹¹, Qifa Zhou⁶, Sheng Xu^{2

12}, Yong Chen^{8

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, California 92182, United States.
² Materials Science and Engineering Program, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0418, United States.
³ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Complex Manufacturing, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University, Hunan 410083, China.
⁴ The Institute of Technological Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
⁵ Roski Eye Institute Keck School of Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90033, United States.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
⁷ Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85281, United States.
⁸ Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
⁹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, 925 Bloom Walk, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
¹⁰ Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
¹¹ School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
¹² Department of NanoEngineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0448, United States.

PMID: 32368921
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01225

Abstract

Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) provide a unique solution for energy harvesting from waste heat, presenting a potential solution for green energy. However, traditional rigid and flexible TEGs cannot work on complex and dynamic surfaces. Here, we report a stretchable TEG (S-TEG) (over 50% stretchability of the entire device) that is geometrically suitable for various complex and dynamic surfaces of heat sources. The S-TEG consists of hot-pressed nanolayered p-(Sb₂Te₃) and n-(Bi₂Te₃)-type thermoelectric couple arrays and exploits the wavy serpentine interconnects to integrate all units. The internal resistance of a 10 × 10 array is 22 ohm, and the output power is ∼0.15 mW/cm² at ΔT = 19 K on both developable and nondevelopable surfaces, which are much improved compared with those of existing S-TEGs. The energy harvesting of S-TEG from the dynamic surfaces of the human skin offers a potential energy solution for the wearable devices for health monitoring.

Keywords: Complex and dynamic surfaces; Green energy; Health monitoring; Nanolayered structure; Stretchable thermoelectric generator.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't