A team of engineers and materials scientists from the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a technology that can convert waste heat into electricity.
The development of a thermophotovoltaic technology
This development is led by Associate Professor Longji Cui, the Cui Research Group collaborated with researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ( NREL ) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to carry out this project, the results of which have recently been published in the journal Energy & Environmental Sciences .
Cui and his team have achieved a milestone by designing a thermophotovoltaic ( TPV ) device that can double the power density achieved with conventional TPV designs. This compact device defies Planck’s Law of Thermal Radiation and promises to increase power generation without the need for high-temperature heat sources or expensive materials.
Professor Cui explained: “Heat is an often overlooked renewable energy source. Two-thirds of all the energy we use is converted to heat. We can recover some of this wasted thermal energy and use it to produce clean electricity.” This innovative approach has the potential to reduce carbon emissions and harness heat from geothermal, nuclear and solar radiation plants around the world.
Cui’s group has designed a unique TPV device that employs a “zero vacuum gap” solution with an insulated spacer made of high-index, infrared-transparent glass. This allows thermal heat waves to travel through the device without losing strength, dramatically improving power generation.
Mohammad Habibi, a PhD student in Cui’s lab and leader of the experiment, expressed his excitement at seeing the results of the experiment: “After running the experiment and processing the data, we saw the improvement ourselves and knew it was a great thing.”
A device that can convert waste heat into electricity
The low-temperature zero-vacuum solution opens up new possibilities for power generation in industrial processes, such as glass, steel and cement production. “Our device can recover wasted heat and provide the energy storage they need with a low working temperature,” Cui said.
The team plans to continue exploring alternative materials to further improve the power density of the TPV device. “This is the first demonstration of this new TPV concept,” Habibi explained. “But if we use other cheap materials with similar properties, such as amorphous silicon, we could increase the power density by up to 20 times.”
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Source and photos: University of Colorado Boulder
