Abstract
Graphene aerogel-supported phase change material (PCM) composites sustain the initial solid state without any leakage problem when they are melted. The high portion of pure PCM in the composite can absorb or release a relatively large amount of heat during heating and cooling. In this study, these form-stable PCM composites were used to construct a thermoelectric power generator for collecting electrical energy under the external temperature change. The Seebeck effect and the temperature difference between the two sides of the thermal device were applied for thermoelectric energy harvesting. Two different PCM composites were used to collect the thermoelectric energy harvesting due to the different phase transition field in the heating and cooling processes. The graphene nano-platelet (GNP) filler was embedded to increase the thermal conductivities of PCM composites. Maximum output current was investigated by utilizing these two PCM composites with different GNP filler ratios. The thermoelectric energy harvesting efficiencies during heating and cooling were 62.26% and 39.96%, respectively. In addition, a finite element method (FEM) numerical analysis was conducted to model the output profiles.
Highlights
Renewable energy has been widely utilized in various areas to replace fossil fuels due to the serious energy crisis and high environmental pollution [1,2]
The graphene aerogel was utilized as a supporting material to infiltrate pure phase change material (PCM) into the internal porous space
The induced current was proportional to the temperature difference, which acted as a key factor to increase the output electrical energy
Summary
Renewable energy has been widely utilized in various areas to replace fossil fuels due to the serious energy crisis and high environmental pollution [1,2]. The development of renewable energy with high efficiency is important for general life [3,4]. Solar heat energy is considered as a wonderful type of clean energy, due to easy collection and low costs [5,6]. Thermoelectric energy conversion has attracted a lot of attention due to its appropriate efficiency [7,8]. Carbon-based materials, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene, can absorb solar energy sufficiently and it is easy to transfer their thermal energy due to the appropriate thermal conductivities [9,10]. Some matrices with high thermal energy storage (TES) are needed to combine the carbon-based materials for energy harvesting applications
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