Advanced Output Performances of Thermoelectric Generator via Poled Ferroelectric Ceramics

Toward free-fuel energy society, the sustainable and renewable energy sources are necessary. There are various energy sources for that, however, each source has lots of problems to overcome. Thermoelectric generator (TEG) is a promising device for energy harvesting, which produces electric energy via the Seebeck effect. Due to the growing demands for electricity and the associated energy crisis, the importance of TEG also has been increased to solve environmental concerns. However, low energy conversion efficiency and stability still remain as the main challenges of TEG. To address these limitations, the recent work demonstrated the optimized Bi₂Te₃ ink-based TEG with charged triboelectric materials to enhance the output voltages by contact electrification. Although the output power was increased, the retention time was still short to applicate. Herein, we propose TEG with a Cu/p-type BiSbTe/Au/Cr/SiO₂/Si in which poled ferroelectric materials are attached at the cold zone. When the poled ferroelectric materials are attached at the back of TEG, the remanent polarization increases charge mobility permanently, inducing charges created on the TEG. The output voltage of TEG coupled with BaTiO₃ ceramic is 4 mV when the temperature difference is 10 K, which is up to 2 times higher than the output voltage of conventional TEG. In addition, when the BaTiO₃-added Pb(Ni,Nb)O₃-PbZrO₃-PbTiO₃ ceramic is coupled with TEG, the maximum output voltage was over 4 mV under the temperature difference of 10 K, which is 2 times increased compared to conventional TEG. This approach provides broad applications of TEG and will achieve practical uses by increasing output performance and retention time without material modification.