Abstract
This paper reports the fabrication and testing of Bismuth Tellurium (Bi2Te3) – Antimony Tellurium (Sb2Te3) based thermocouples using screen printing technology. In this study, screen printable thermoelectric pastes were developed and the transport properties of cured material were measured. The dimension of each planer thermoleg is 39.3 mm × 3 mm with a thickness of 67 μm for Bi2Te3 leg and 62 μm for Sb2Te3 leg. A single thermocouple with this dimension can generate a voltage of 6 mV and a peak output power of 48 nW at a temperature difference of 20°C. The calculated Seebeck coefficient of a single thermocouple is in the range of 262 – 282 μV/K. The Seebeck coefficient at room temperature were measured to be −134 – −119 μV/K and 128 – 134 μV/K for Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 respectively. This work demonstrates that the low-cost screen printing technology and low-temperature materials are promising for the fabrication of flexible thermoelectric generators (TEGs).
Highlights
Based on Seebeck effect, the thermoelectric modules have ability to directly transfer heat into electric energy
Thermoelectric properties of printed thick-films The Seebeck coefficient measurement results in comparison with the bulk value are shown in table 1
This work demonstrates that the low cost screen printing technology can be used to fabricate BiTe/SbTe based Thermoelectric Generators (TEGs) for room temperature energy harvesting applications
Summary
Based on Seebeck effect, the thermoelectric modules have ability to directly transfer heat into electric energy. The TEG devices have advantages such as silently operation, no moving parts and high reliability It is the best approach for powering the devices in locations where there are poor levels of illumination but sufficient waste heat. Screen printing is a low-cost process that is well suited for large area fabrication. It involves the deposition of synthesized thermoelectric inks that consist of thermoelectric material powders in a binder and solvent matrix. The simplicity and low energy consumption is quite attractive for fabricating TEGs. The Seebeck effect and structure of a screen printed thermocouple is illustrated in figure 1. A planer TEG with 4 thermocouples was fabricated by screen printing technology and the thermal performance tested
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