Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: As the newly emerging direct writing technology, the liquid metal printed electronics is showing large promising potential in quickly manufacturing a variety of flexible electronics and circuits, optoelectronic sensors as well as energy harvesting devices etc. Here, the concept of liquid metal enabled directly printable thermoelectric generator was proposed for the first time and an integrated prototype device was fabricated. Taking thermocouple and thermopile directly made of gallium-constantan or gallium-GaIn alloy as typical examples, the thermoelectric performances of these two kinds of devices made of liquid-solid or liquid-liquid components were systematically evaluated and appropriate matching materials were identified. Further, 20 gallium-constantan thermocouples were integrated together as a thermoelectric generator. Through magnifying its output electric voltage, this device could offer a load voltage of 1.59 V and a power of 70.44 mW which is capable of driving a LED lamp. In addition, when the gallium film depth was improved from its original 10 to 800 mm, significantly improved load voltage of 1.70 V and power of 742.9 mW were obtained with increasing ratio as 6.92% and 955%, respectively. The present experiments demonstrated the practical values of the liquid metal based printed thermoelectric generator in harvesting thermal energy.
Source: Scientia Sinica Technologica
DOI: 10.1360/092013-1239
Authors: Yuan ZHOU, Jing LIU, HaiYan LI
Language: English
Subfield: Materials Chemistry
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2335106049