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Japanese researchers use AI to accelerate the design of thermoelectric generators

Japanese researchers use AI to accelerate the design of thermoelectric generators

AI Tool Accelerates Thermoelectric Generator Design While Matching Leading Prototype Performance
TEGNet reduces simulation time from thousands of seconds to fractions of one
Cheaper waste heat collectors could follow, although manufacturing has yet to prove itself

Researchers in Japan have created an artificial intelligence tool that can design thermoelectric generators much faster than standard simulation methods, pointing to cheaper ways to convert waste heat into electricity.

TEGNet was developed by Takao Mori and colleagues at the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) in Japan and the University of Tsukuba.

In the article published in NatureIt predicted generator performance with over 99% accuracy and used only 0.01% of the computing time needed by commercial finite element solvers.

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Acting as a fast emulator

Thermoelectric generators convert heat differences directly into electricity, without turbines or moving parts.

They already power spacecraft, remote sensors and some isolated infrastructure, but their cost and lackluster performance have kept them out of broader use in factories, refineries, vehicles and electronics.

Designing thermoelectric generators is slow because researchers have to balance materials, geometry, temperature conditions, electrical resistance, and heat flow.

A conventional solver has to solve coupled physics equations over and over again, which can take days or weeks for extensive searches.

TEGNet learns from those simulations and then acts as a fast emulator. The paper says that a typical material simulation took about 2237 seconds in COMSOL, while TEGNet produced the same type of result in about 0.25 seconds.

The researchers used AI to improve two types of generators, one built from stacked layers of different materials and another made from paired semiconductor materials that work together to produce electricity.

The prototypes built in the laboratory achieved conversion efficiencies of 9.3% and 8.7%, respectively, which places them among the good results reported for that temperature range.

That still does not make thermoelectric a panacea. The conversion of heat to electricity is limited by basic thermodynamics, and these devices need a sufficient temperature difference to be useful.

The interesting thing is the cost. Mori said IEEE Spectrum that the estimated costs suggest that an industrially competitive power generation cost could be possible “for the first time in thermoelectric history.”

TEGNet also identified designs that could use simpler manufacturing and, in some cases, avoid bismuth telluride, a common but expensive thermoelectric material.

That could help make waste heat collectors and high-performance home heat pumps cheaper, although real-world manufacturing has yet to prove the numbers.