June 9, 2014: Researchers Find New Way to Harness Waste Heat
Thermogalvanic Effect Has Potential to Efficiently Turn Low-Grade Heat to Electricity
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Huge amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and power plants; researchers have long been seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most efforts have focused on thermoelectric devices, but the efficiency of such devices is limited by the availability of materials. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University have now found a new alternative for low-temperature waste-heat conversion into electricity — that is, in cases where temperature differences are less than 100°C.
The new approach, based on a phenomenon called the thermogalvanic effect, is described in a paper published by postdoctoral scholar Yuan Yang and professor Gang Chen at MIT, postdoctoral scholar Seok Woo Lee and professor Yi Cui at Stanford, and three others.