Seamless design of thermoelectric modules from single-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Growing demand for electricity necessitates making the overall process of electrical energy generation more efficient. Currently, this process produces a considerable amount of waste heat, which may be recovered by using thermoelectric materials. However, the off-the-shelf thermogenerators are most commonly made of metals, which are toxic and not abundant in the Earth's crust. Nanocarbon materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are currently regarded as a promising alternative, which may revolutionize this field. In this work, the possibility of creating an all-carbon thermoelectric module from a single piece of a film composed of single-walled CNTs (doped with hexamethylenediamine and 2,4-dinitroaniline to make n- and p-doped thermoelements, respectively) is presented. The presented thermogenerators reveal appreciable performance (783 μW output power), and they are fully scalable. The utility of this concept was proven by powering a digital thermometer using waste heat for a sufficient amount of time to record the body's temperature.