Nanoscale Pillars To Improve Performance Of Solar Panels And Conventional Fossil Fuel Power Plants

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Terry Wilson in Technology // 0 Comments

By: Brenda McGregor
frenchtribune.com

A new research has built hope to radically improve the performance of thermoelectric materials by utilizing an array of ‘nanoscale pillars’. The research, conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder, said that these tiny pillars offer a completely new approach to transcend the limitations of thermoelectric since introduction.

The researchers have said that the new approach would play a significant role in the improvement of several technologies like solar panels, cooling equipment, conventional fossil fuel power plants and many more.

Thermoelectric effect was first discovered in the 1800s and it provides the ability to generate electrical current from a temperature difference between one side of a material and the other. When an electric current is applied to thermoelectric material, one end of the material gets heated up while the other stays cool. But the reverse also has the same effect and overheating electrical devices weakens the current required to operate the device.

The researchers built nanoscale-sized pillars to place over a sheet of silicon as it has thermoelectric properties and is regularly used in nanotechnology. As a result, the researchers created ‘nanophononic metamaterial’. Heat was transported through the material with the help of a sequence of very minimal vibrations.

Professor Mahmoud Hussein and doctoral student Bruce Davis of the University of Colorado Boulder showed that the vibrations of the pillars interacted with the vibrations of the phonons to slow down the flow of heat.

The pillar vibrations do not affect the conductivity of the electrical current, while the output of the heat is reduced by the materials. This has allowed researchers to figure out a way to convert the heat energy into something that can be used. Nearly all electronic devices are known to produce excessive heat when they run like electric stoves, laptops or cell phones, but the new technology could improve their efficiency.