Study Of Thermo-Electochemical Cells Base On Carbon Nanotubes

With the development of social economy, Eco-environment get more and more attention by people, The utilization and recycling of energy become an important research subject. Low-grade heat (<100℃) widely exist in natural environment,it can be obtained from various channels,such as geothermal energy, solar energy and industrial waste heat. Therefore, low-grade heat has been regarded as a kind of sustainable energy. For many years the research community has focused on using solid-state thermoelectrics and Stirling engines to efficiently harvest low-grade heat as electrical energy Although the above technique has achieved some of development the recycling of low-grade heat is constrained by the problems like low energy conversion efficiency, high initial cost and poor long-term reliability..Thermal-electrochemical cells is the device that utilizes the temperature dependence of electrochemical redox potentials (i.e., the Seebeck effect) to produce electrical power. thermocells have the potential advantages of simple design, direct thermal-to-electric energy conversion, continuous operation, low expected maintenance, zero carbon emissions While the development of thermal-electrochemical cells is constrained by the low energy conversion efficiency and expensive electrode material. Traditional thermal-electrochemical cells always use noble metal (Platinum, palladium) as its electrode material.With more and more study of nano materials, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) become a potential alternative for electrode. CNTs with large electrochemical accessible surface area can provide more active sites that beneficial to electronic transportation;meanwhile,stable chemical, mechanical, and thermal properties of CNTs can also provide long-term reliability for thermal-electrochemical cells.Many preparation processes of CNTs has been investigated,such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD), screen printing electrophoresis deposition (EPD) and so on. Among these methods,CVD and electrophoresis respectively have their own advantages. The main research content of this paper is:Preparing CNTs electrode by EPD and CVD, then depend on thermal-electrochemical cells test system, optimize and improve parameters such as suspension, working voltage, deposition time, gas flow ratio, reaction pressure and so on.finally, make thermal-electrochemical cells have a relatively high thermoelectric conversion efficiency.Under the condition of the optimization results,Carbon nanotube electrodes surface current density reached4.5mA/cm2, Energy Conversion Efficiency reached0.14%. Relative energy conversion efficiency could reach0.9%。...