Case Studies

Thermoelectric Microgenerator Project

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Thermoelectric Microgenerator

Reducing thermoelectric microgenerator production costs to allow penetration into new and larger markets.

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Thermoelectric micro-generators are solid state devices that can provide constant sources of electricity with minimal maintenance.  Metal chalcogenides offer great potential as thermoelectric (TE) materials with their properties determined by stoichiometry, morphology (phase, crystallinity, crystallite orientation) and size.

Selective Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) offers a mechanism to control the fabrication of these compounds to take advantage of this potential and maximise performance.

However, the chemistry needed to achieve the quality of deposition required for optimised devices requires further work along with full process development and these investigations are the focus of this project. Working closely with key stakeholders the objective of the studies is to reduce thermoelectric microgenerator production costs to allow penetration into new and larger markets.

EpiValence is supporting the precursor activity to identify molecule synthesis approaches that can be scaled.  In particular yield and purity improvement at high volumes for Sb, Bi, Se, Te compounds will be assessed to enable economic pricing to be achieved.  The principle collaborating academic is Prof Gill Reid.

Thermoelectric Microgenerator