Carbon Nanotube Flexible Transverse Thermoelectrics

NU 2012-125

Inventors

Chuanle Zhou

Matthew Grayson*

Mark Hersam

Yang Tang

Tejas Shastry

Short Description

A new paradigm for transverse thermoelectrics based on carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Northwestern researchers have developed a paradigm of transverse thermoelectrics based on carbon nanotubes (CNT). Although standard longitudinal thermal coolers and generators are commercially well known for their reliability, light-weight, and application in waste energy harvesting, they cannot operate either at cryogenic temperatures or at very small scales. Transverse thermoelectrics, on the contrary, can overcome these problems since devices can be specifically shaped to reach very low temperatures independent of the material's figure of merit, and scaling down to micron size is much easier due to the simple structure. As a candidate transverse thermoelectric material, CNT arrays have various additional advantages. First, the ease of production and low cost of material makes the price of CNT thermoelectrics almost one tenth that of industry standards. Secondly, the thermoelectric power per unit mass is as much as five times greater the industry standard. Finally, CNT can be combined with polymers to produce flexible and durable transverse thermoelectrics and for easy integration into future CNT-based flexible electronics for active thermal management.

Applications

• Flexible transverse thermoelectric generator fabrics for waste heat harvesting and related products including thermal jackets, thermal carpets, thermal building coatings.
• Flexible transverse thermoelectric cooling fabrics. Objects of different shapes can be cooled down by wrapping into these fabrics and applying current.
• Cooling modules in flexible CNT-based electronics.
• Waste heat recovery and thermoelectric conversion on flexible substrates
• High voltage thermal transducers from small thermal gradients.

Advantages

• Low cost and abundant material sources
• Flexible and durable
• Easy fabrication processes
• Larger cooling temperature difference compared with longitudinal thermoelectric solutions based on CNT

IP Status

A US patent application is pending.