Breakthrough in Converting Heat Waste to Electricity Automotive,
chemical, brick and glass industries could benefit from
scientific discoveryJanuary 18, 2011 | by Erin White EVANSTON,
Ill. --- Researchers at Northwestern University have placed
nanocrystals of rock salt into lead telluride, creating a
material that can harness electricity from heat-generating items
such as vehicle exhaust systems, industrial processes and
equipment and sun light more efficiently than scientists have
seen in the past. The material exhibits a high thermoelectric
figure of merit that is expected to enable 14 percent of heat
waste to electricity, a scientific first. Chemists, physicists
and material scientists at Northwestern collaborated to develop
the material. The results of the study are published by the
journal Nature Chemistry. “It has been known for 100 years that
semiconductors have this property that can harness electricity,”
said Mercouri Kanatzidis, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison
Professor of Chemistry in The Weinb