{"id":23077,"date":"2022-07-25T15:33:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T09:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=23077"},"modified":"2022-07-25T15:33:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T09:48:37","slug":"researchers-discover-eco-friendly-thermoelectric-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/researchers-discover-eco-friendly-thermoelectric-material\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Discover Eco-friendly Thermoelectric material"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A team led by Professor Hiromichi Ohta at the Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University has synthesized a barium cobalt oxide thermoelectric converter that is reproducibly stable and efficient at temperatures as high as 600\u00b0C. Their findings were published in the journal\u00a0ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The crystal structure of the barium cobalt oxide film (left; Xi Zhang, Yuqiao Zhang, et al. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. July 12, 2022), and the metal oxide film itself (right; Photo: Hiromichi Ohta).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Waste heat is a very promising source of energy conservation and reuses, by means of converting this heat into electricity\u2014a process called thermoelectric conversion. Commercially available thermoelectric conversion devices are synthesized using rare metals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these are quite efficient, they are expensive and, in the majority of cases, utilize toxic materials. Both these factors have led to these converters being of limited use. One of the alternatives is oxide-based thermoelectric materials, but the primary drawback these suffer from is a lack of evidence of their stability at high temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thermoelectric conversion is driven by the Seebeck effect: when there is a temperature difference across a conducting material, an electric current is generated. However, the efficiency of thermoelectric conversion is dependent on a figure called the thermoelectric figure of merit\u00a0ZT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically, oxide-based converters had a low\u00a0ZT, but recent research has revealed many candidates that have high\u00a0ZT, but their stability at high temperatures was not well documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiromichi Ohta\u2019s group has been working on layered cobalt oxide films for over two decades. In this study, the team sought to examine the thermal and chemical stability of these films, as well as measure their\u00a0ZT\u00a0values, at high temperatures. They tested cobalt oxide films layered with sodium, calcium, strontium, or barium, analyzing their structure, resistivity, and thermal conductivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found that, of the four variants, the barium cobalt oxide layered film retained its stability in terms of structural integrity and electrical resistivity at temperatures as high as 600\u00b0C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur study has shown that barium cobalt oxide films would be excellent candidates for high-temperature thermoelectric conversion devices,\u201d said Hiromichi Ohta. \u201c In addition, they are environment friendly, giving potential for wide deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comparison, the sodium- and calcium cobalt oxide films were only stable until 350\u00b0C, and the strontium cobalt oxide film was stable up to 450\u00b0C. The\u00a0ZT\u00a0of the barium cobalt oxide film increased with the temperature, reaching ~0.55 at 600\u00b0C, comparable to some commercially available thermoelectric converters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team led by Professor Hiromichi Ohta at the Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University has synthesized a barium cobalt oxide thermoelectric converter that is reproducibly stable and efficient at temperatures as high as 600\u00b0C. Their findings were published in the journal\u00a0ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Waste heat is a very promising source […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-physics","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",2240,1184,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-200x200.png",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-675x357.png",675,357,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-768x406.png",750,396,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-675x357.png",675,357,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-1536x812.png",1536,812,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-2048x1083.png",2048,1083,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",1200,634,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",870,460,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",600,317,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",600,317,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-760x490.png",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-550x360.png",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter-95x65.png",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",640,338,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",96,51,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/termoelectric-converter.png",150,79,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Physics<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}