Modules, Systems, and Applications in Thermoelectrics

With contributions from leading experts, this book begins with an overview of thermoelectric nanotechnology, setting the scene for the topics covered in the rest of the volume. It provides a comprehensive review of the progress made in the development of modules and their application in devices. The book highlights dramatic advances in miniaturization and its successful commercialization in energy harvesting. It then covers thermoelectric energy harvesting and contains reviews of the solar, automotive, and medical harvesting of waste heat.

Comprising two volumes, Thermoelectrics and Its Energy Harvesting reviews the dramatic improvements in technology and application of thermoelectric energy with a specific intention to reduce and reuse waste heat and improve novel techniques for the efficient acquisition and use of energy. This volume, Modules, Systems and Applications in Thermoelectrics, discusses the practical, novel, and truly groundbreaking applications of thermoelectrics in a range of markets.

The book details the U.S. interest in alternative energy and energy harvesting, specifically, the current efforts to use thermoelectric generators (TGs) to reduce emissions. Internationally, it expounds on the strong interest in Japan, Korea and Europe to incorporate TGs in cars to reduce fuel consumption and meet EU carbon dioxide emission targets; the European plans to build an isotopic powered thermoelectric generator; and India’s use of TG s in converting hot water from steel mills into electricity.