Printed Thermoelectric Devices Using Vanadate Glass Composite Materials

SUMMARY Thermoelectric (TE) devices have emerged as one of the most promising new technologies for use as sensor module energy harvesters and as waste‐heat recovery systems. Low‐cost and large‐area printed TE devices are suitable because heat sources are widely distributed throughout the environment. In addition, high reliability is also required of the TE materials because the devices are operated in high‐temperature environments over long periods of time. In this study, we developed glass matrix TE composite materials that have a higher softening temperature than organic materials. Using low melting point vanadate glasses as the matrix materials, we fabricated n‐type Bi2Te3‐vanadate glass and p‐type Bi0.3Sb1.7Te3‐vanadate glass composites. The figure of merit (ZT) of both materials was approximately 0.2 at temperatures between 25 °C and 300 °C. We also fabricated a pair of thermocouple devices using these vanadate glass composites with simple printing process, and an output voltage of 5 mV was obtained when the thermocouple pair was placed on a hot plate heated to 90 °C.