Thermoelectric materials

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9997692-B2
Application number	US-201213433620-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 29, 2012
Priority date	Mar 29, 2011
Publication date	Jun 12, 2018
Grant date	Jun 12, 2018

Abstract

Disclosed is an article having: a porous thermally insulating material, an electrically conductive coating on the thermally insulating material, and a thermoelectric coating on the electrically conductive coating. Also disclosed is a method of forming an article by: providing a porous thermally insulating material, coating an electrically conductive coating on the thermally insulating material, and coating a thermoelectric coating on the electrically conductive coating. The articles may be useful in thermoelectric devices.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An thermoelectric article comprising:
a porous thermally insulating fibrous membrane comprising entangled, individual fibers;
a conformal electrically conductive coating directly on and surrounding the individual fibers of the thermally insulating membrane;
and a conformal thermoelectric coating on the electrically conductive coating of the individual fibers.

2. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the article contains at least 80% by mass of the thermally insulating material.

3. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the thermally insulating material has a thermal conductivity of at most 0.1 W m −1 K −1 .

4. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the entangled, individual fibers are silica fibers.

5. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive coating comprises a material having a bulk electrical conductivity of at least 50 S cm −1 .

6. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive coating comprises ruthenia.

7. The thermoelectric article of claim 6 , wherein the entangled, individual fibers are silica fibers.

8. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive coating is at most 100 nm thick.

9. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the thermoelectric coating comprises a material having a bulk Seebeck coefficient absolute value of at least 50 μV K −1 .

10. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the thermoelectric coating comprises one or more of tellurium, tellurium oxide, and a bismuth telluride.

11. The thermoelectric article of claim 10 , wherein the entangled, individual fibers are silica fibers; and wherein the electrically conductive coating comprises ruthenia.

12. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the thermoelectric coating is at most 100 nm thick.

13. The thermoelectric article of claim 1 , wherein the article has a figure of merit of at least 1 at room temperature.

14. A thermoelectric element comprising: the thermoelectric article of claim 1 ; and two electrodes in contact with separated portions of the article.

15. A method comprising:
placing a portion of the thermoelectric element of claim 14 in an area or on a surface to be cooled; and
applying a voltage between electrodes.

16. A method of forming a thermoelectric article comprising:
providing a porous thermally insulating fibrous membrane comprising entangled, individual fibers;
conformally coating an electrically conductive coating directly on and surrounding the individual fibers of the thermally insulating membrane;
and conformally coating a thermoelectric coating on the electrically conductive coating of the individual fibers.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the article contains at least 80% by mass of the thermally insulating material.

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the entangled, individual fibers are silica fibers.

19. The method of claim 16 , wherein the electrically conductive coating comprises ruthenia.

20. The method of claim 16 , wherein the electrically conductive coating is at most 100 nm thick.

21. The method of claim 16 , wherein the thermoelectric coating comprises one or more of tellurium, tellurium oxide, and a bismuth telluride.

22. The method of claim 16 , wherein the thermoelectric coating is at most 100 nm thick.

Assignees

• Rolison Debra R
• Us Navy

Inventors

• Rolison Debra R

Classifications

• H01L35/16

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L35/22 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10N10/8556

  comprising compounds containing germanium or silicon · CPC title

• H10N10/855 Primary

  comprising compounds containing boron, carbon, oxygen or nitrogen · CPC title

• H10N10/852

  comprising tellurium, selenium or sulfur · CPC title