Fundamental Aspects and Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for Power Generation: A Numerical Simulation Case Study

Abstract

Power generation using thermoelectric generator technology is becoming increasingly attractive solution due to the ongoing substantial improvements in material engineering, system optimization, and novel manufacturing technologies with recent advances in nanotechnology. The design and fabrication of novel thermoelectric materials is challenging because they require co-optimization of complex properties to efficiently convert thermal energy to electricity in what is known as the Seebeck effect. Computational chemistry and machine learning offer a solution toward finding optimal thermoelectric semiconductor alloys with higher figure of merit values. In this chapter, fundamental aspects and advances in thermoelectric materials for power generation are presented and discussed. A thorough modeling and numerical simulation for a case study of a TEG device application are also presented and discussed in this chapter.