Researchers at West Virginia University have engineered a material with the potential to dramatically cut the amount of heat power plants release into the atmosphere.
Researchers at West Virginia University have engineered a material with the potential to dramatically cut the amount of heat power plants release into the atmosphere.
A team led by Xueyan Song, professor and George B. Berry Chair of Engineering at the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, has created an oxide ceramic material that solves a longstanding efficiency problem plaguing thermoelectric generators. Those devices can generate electricity from heat, including power plant heat emissions, which contribute to global warming.
The breakthrough oxide ceramic Song’s team produced “achieved a record-high performance that had been deemed impossible,” she said. “We demonstrated the best thermoelectric oxide ceramics reported in the field worldwide over the past 20 years, and the results open up new research directions that could further increase performance.”
Cesar Octavio Romo de la Cruz, Yun Chen, Liang Liang and Sergio A. Paredes Navia contributed to the study, supported by $639,784 in National Science Foundation funding. The findings appear in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Read more at West Virginia University
Image: WVU researchers Sergio Andres Paredes Navia, Cesar Octavio Romo de la Cruz, Liang Liang and Ellena Gemmen use an electron microscope to study the nanostructure of a new oxide ceramic material with the potential to make thermoelectric generators efficient enough to capture a significant portion of the waste heat that industrial systems like power plants emit. (Submitted photo via West Virginia University)
