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arXiv · 1506.06546

Thermoelectric energy recovery at ionic-liquid/electrode interface

Marco Bonetti·Sawako Nakamae·Bo Tao Huang·Thomas J. Salez·Cecile Wiertel-Gasquet·Michel Roger
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Abstract

A Thermally Chargeable Capacitor containing a binary solution of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)-imide (EMIMTFSI) in acetonitrile is electrically charged by applying a tempera- ture gradient to two ideally polarisable electrodes. The corresponding thermoelectric coefficient is -1.7 mV/K for platinum foil electrodes and -0.3 mV/K for nanoporous carbon electrodes. Stored electrical energy is extracted by discharging the capacitor through a resistor. The measured capacitance of the electrode/ionic- liquid interface is 5 micro $μ$F for each platinum electrode while it becomes four orders of magnitude larger $\approx 36$ mF for a single nanoporous carbon electrode. Reproducibility of the effect through repeated charging-discharging cycles under a steady-state temperature gradient demonstrates the robustness of the electrical charging pro- cess at the liquid/electrode interface. The acceleration of the charging by convective flows is also observed. This offers the possibility to convert waste-heat into electric energy without exchanging electrons between ions and electrodes, in contrast to what occurs in most thermogalvanic cells.

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Marco Bonetti, Sawako Nakamae, Bo Tao Huang, Thomas J. Salez, Cecile Wiertel-Gasquet, Michel Roger. 2015-06-22. Thermoelectric energy recovery at ionic-liquid/electrode interface. https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.06546

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