Design of a polymer thermoelectric generator using radial architecture

Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are solid-state heat engines consisting of p-type and n-type semiconductors that convert heat into electricity via the Seebeck effect. Conducting polymers are a viable alternative with intrinsic advantages over their inorganic counterparts, since they are abundant, flexible as thick-films, and have reduced manufacturing costs due to solution processing. Furthermore, polymers have an inherently low thermal conductivity, thus affording them the option of forgoing some heat exchanger costs. Current examples of polymer TE devices have been limited to traditional flat-plate geometries with power densities on the μW/cm2 scale, where their potential is not fully realized. Herein, we report a novel radial device architecture and model the improved performance of polymer-based TEG based on this architecture. Our radial architecture accommodates a fluid as the heat source and can operate under natural convection alone due to heat spreading. Analytical heat transfer and electrical models are presented that optimize the device for maximum power density, and for the first time we obtain the geometry matching condition that maximizes the efficiency. We predict high power densities of ∼1 mW/cm2 using state-of-the-art polymer TEs subjected to a temperature difference of 100 K, which is nearly 1000× higher than polymer flat-plate architectures reported in literature.