Davoodabadi, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-9868-5575, Vareli, I., Liebscher, M. et al. (6 more authors) (2021) Thermoelectric energy harvesting from single-walled carbon nanotube alkali-activated nanocomposites produced from industrial waste materials. Nanomaterials, 11 (5). 1095. ISSN 2079-4991
Abstract
A waste-originated one-part alkali-activated nanocomposite is introduced herein as a novel thermoelectric material. For this purpose, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were utilized as nanoinclusions to create an electrically conductive network within the investigated alkali-activated construction material. Thermoelectric and microstructure characteristics of SWCNT-alkali-activated nanocomposites were assessed after 28 days. Nanocomposites with 1.0 wt.% SWCNTs exhibited a multifunctional behavior, a combination of structural load-bearing, electrical conductivity, and thermoelectric response. These nanocomposites (1.0 wt.%) achieved the highest thermoelectric performance in terms of power factor (PF), compared to the lower SWCNTs’ incorporations, namely 0.1 and 0.5 wt.%. The measured electrical conductivity (σ) and Seebeck coefficient (S) were 1660 S·m−1 and 15.8 µV·K−1, respectively, which led to a power factor of 0.414 μW·m−1·K−2. Consequently, they have been utilized as the building block of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) device, which demonstrated a maximum power output (Pout) of 0.695 µW, with a power density (PD) of 372 nW·m−2, upon exposure to a temperature gradient of 60 K. The presented SWCNT-alkali-activated nanocomposites could establish the pathway towards waste thermal energy harvesting and future sustainable civil engineering structures.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | alkali-activated nanocomposites; single-walled carbon nanotubes; thermal energy harvesting; thermoelectric generator; multifunctional waste materials; green construction |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Oct 2022 11:39 |
Last Modified: | 21 Oct 2022 11:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI AG |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/nano11051095 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:191498 |