Transparent electrode for harvesting energy using a thermoelectric principle

• Main Author: Tai, Zhen Hang
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/5386/1/MH_1806667_Final_%2D_ZHEN_HANG_TAI.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/5386/

Everyone relies on electricity to power up electronic gadgets, lights, medical equipment, commute between cities and countless others. Nevertheless, electricity is primarily produced by burning fossil fuels or other non-renewable sources which resulted in many unfavourable consequences such as pollutions, global warming, and climate change. One of the recent developments focus on generating electricity directly from heat, exploiting Seebeck effect. Transparent thermoelectric generator (t-TEG) is a transparent device that can generate electricity when subjected to a temperature gradient across it. It not only serves in power generating applications but also in imperceptible robotics, sensors, advanced materials and wearables. In this research project, a number of t-TEGs were fabricated by spin-coating and direct deposition methods under UTAR Sungai Long Campus laboratory setting. The selected p-type material was PEDOT:PSS and n-type material was ITO. The highest output power of the t-TEG (0.0006 m2 ) was recorded at 32.58 nW when subjected to a temperature gradient of 120 °C. This t-TEG had 5 layers of PEDOT:PSS thin films coated on a glass substrate and exhibited an average % transmittance above 80 %. As compared to the similar work reported by Wang et al., their tTEG had a power density of 22.2 Wm-2 which was significantly higher than the t-TEG fabricated in this project. This was mainly because they utilized trifluoromethanesulfonic-methanol mixture, TFMS-MeOH (V:V = 1:10) chemical to treat the PEDOT:PSS prior to pairing with ITO and they connected 10 pairs of these thermocouples in series. By purchasing TFMSMeOH to post-treat PEDOT:PSS and improve morphology of the t-TEG in further study, a greater output power is possible.