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Development of Flexible Micro-Thermo-electrochemical Generators Based on Ionic Liquids

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Abstract

The unfavourable relationship between electrical and thermal conductivity limits the choice of solid-state materials for thermoelectric generators (TEG). Among ionic liquids (IOL), it appears that a large variety of thermoelectric (TE) materials with promising high Seebeck coefficients have potential for development. Furthermore, the novel solid-on-liquid deposition technology (SOLID) allows the encapsulation of liquid TE materials to create new, highly integrated TEG devices. Following this vision, this paper studies a large number of IOLs looking at TE-relevant parameters such as thermal and electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and temperature-dependent viscosity. We show that positive and negative Seebeck coefficients can be obtained, depending on the molecular structure and the viscosity of the IOL. The properties of single-junction TEGs are presented in terms of IV characteristics correlated with the IOL properties. We prove that the limiting effect of conversion efficiency is the current density that can be extracted from a device rather than the Seebeck coefficient.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the ‘Polish-Swiss-Research Programme’ for the project ‘‘Enerliq’’ in collaboration with Gdansk University of Technology in Poland. Grant Number: PSPB-051/2010.

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Correspondence to Stefanie Uhl.

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Uhl, S., Laux, E., Journot, T. et al. Development of Flexible Micro-Thermo-electrochemical Generators Based on Ionic Liquids. J. Electron. Mater. 43, 3758–3764 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-014-3126-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-014-3126-1

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