RUNNING HEAD: POLYMER FOIL THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR 1

Article Summary III

Coin-size Coiled-up Polymer Foil Thermoelectric Power Generator for Wearable Electronics

Noah Egan, Alen Jomon, Shahid Khan

September 27, 2018

Dr. Psaker
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Abstract

In this experiment, a coiled thermoelectric generator prototype was built and tested. The

prototype was built to offer a thermoelectric generator cheaper than what is available and outputs

a relatively high voltage. Most wearable technology power consumers need a low amount of

power (1-10μW) and a relatively high voltage of around 1V. The basic equation for the voltage

of a thermoelectric generator is V = n · ΔT(α₁ − α₂), where n is the number of thermocouples, ΔT

is the change in temperature between the sides of the generator, and α₁ and α₂ are the

thermoelectric coefficients of the materials used for the thermocouples. This generator was made

up of a coiled-up polymer film with cheaper thermocouples made of antimony and bismuth

printed on it using a screen printing process. The coiled up film increases the number of

thermocouples that can fit into a certain area. The prototype of the film was tested by placing it

in between two metal plates, heating one and leaving the other at room temperature. A resulting

voltage of 65μV/K was obtained from a single thermocouple, which would produce a voltage of

0.8V and a power of 0.8μW if the generator took up an area of 1cm² and there was a 5K

temperature difference. In the second experiment, a film with thermocouples made of the same

materials was screen printed onto the film, producing a voltage of 97μV/K per thermocouple.

Although lower than the theoretical 140μV/K that could be produced using the same materials,

the experiment shows that a cheaper thermoelectric generator offering a relatively high voltage is

possible.
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Methods and Materials

Figure 1. The image above represents the 3-dimensional model of the Coiled-Polymer

thermoelectric generator.

Figure 2. (a) The image represents the ‘top’ view of the schematic designed for the prototype.

(b) The image represents the ‘side’ view of the schematic designed for the prototype.

In creating this low-cost alternative generator, the authors have come to an equilibrium of

performance vs. size. The thermocouples were created with a combination of antimony and
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bismuth (the fundamental elements in creating thermoelectricity) on a polymer substrate of 12.5

μm of thickness, with a thickness of 1-3 μm.

Although the polymer-substrate base reduces its electric conductivity compared to other

compound bases used for thermoelectric generators such as Bi2Te3, Sb2Te3, or Bi2Se3, they are

impressively cheap due to the method called “screen-printing.” Screen-printing allows for nearly

full-consumption of the materials used in the process of creating thermoelectric generators. The

paste used for screen-printing consisted of a small amount of antimony and bismuth (4 μm for

antimony and 37 μm for bismuth), ethylene glycol, epoxy glue, polymethylmethacrylate. The

initial prototype to test the coiling up method was made by sputtering through a shadow mask,

with thermocouples made of bismuth and antimony. Sputtering is a method to increase electric

conductivity, however, it is expensive. The final design used screen printing to make the

generator. Both designs were tested by putting the strip in between two metal plates, with one

metal plate being heated. A thermocouple thermometer was used to measure the temperature

with an uncertainty of no more than 1K. A multimeter measured the resulting voltage.
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Analysis

Figure 1. The graph shows the prototype thermoelectric generator and how the voltage changes

proportionally as a result of an increase in temperature. The change in temperature affects the

power in a parabolic form. The graph is showing 3 variables, so the third variable, power, is on

the right axis of the graph, and the curve is labeled “Power”.

Figure 2. This graph shows the effect of the temperature difference in the voltage for screen

printed antimony. The best line of fit is shown on the graph, and the slope of this line is 97

μV/K. This data is nearly proportionate throughout the whole graph and continues at this slope.
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The screen print Antimony was used because of its high power output and the screen

printed Bismuth Antimony compound was used because of its low electrical resistance. The

authors stated these could be improved on by finding better ratios for each molecule to get the

voltage higher and closer to the desired theoretical value.

In the first prototype, the voltage of 65μV/K was obtained from a single thermocouple. A

voltage of 0.8V and a power of 0.8μW was predicted if the generator took up an area of 1cm²

from these results, while there is a 5K temperature difference. This is close to the rough estimate

of the voltage used by most wearable electronics (such as watches or hearing aids) of 1V. In the

second experiment, a film with thermocouples made of antimony and a bismuth-antimony alloy

was screen printed onto the film, which produced a voltage of 97μV/K per thermocouple. This

was lower than the theoretical 140μV/K which is possible using these materials, but many

technological advancements have been made since the publishing of this article, so this could be

easily improved. These experiments show that the coiling up method is possible and that cheaper

materials can be used in thermoelectric generators. Many technological advancements have been

made since the publishing of this article, so this could be easily improved.

These results are applicable to our research project because we plan to use thermoelectric

generators with wearable technology or other devices. Since only a 1V output is needed, and it

can be produced with relatively cheap materials (shown in this experiment), a machine powered

by a thermoelectric generator is possible.

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References

Weber, J., Potje-Kamloth, K., Haase, F., Detemple, P., Völklein, F., & Doll, T. (2006, July

17). Coin-size coiled-up polymer foil thermoelectric power generator for wearable electronics.

Retrieved September 25, 2018, from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924424706003207