Improved thermoelectric generator performance using high temperature thermoelectric materials

Thermoelectric generator (TEG) has received more and more attention in its application in the harvesting of waste thermal energy in automotive engines. Even though the commercial Bismuth Telluride thermoelectric material only have 5% efficiency and 250°C hot side temperature limit, it is possible to generate peak 1kW electrical energy from a heavy-duty engine. If being equipped with 500W TEG, a passenger car has potential to save more than 2% fuel consumption and hence CO2 emission reduction. TEG has advantages of compact and motionless parts over other thermal harvest technologies such as Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and Turbo-Compound (TC). Intense research works are being carried on improving the thermal efficiency of the thermoelectric materials and increasing the hot side temperature limit. Future thermoelectric modules are expected to have 10% to 20% efficiency and over 500°C hot side temperature limit. This paper presents the experimental synthesis procedure of both p-type and n-type skutterudite thermoelectric materials and the fabrication procedure of the thermoelectric modules using this material. These skutterudite materials were manufactured in the chemical lab in the University of Reading and then was fabricated into modules in the lab in Cardiff University. These thermoelectric materials can work up to as high as 500°C temperature and the corresponding modules can work at maximum 400°C hot side temperature. The performance loss from materials to modules has been investigated and discussed in this paper. By using a validated TEG model, the performance improvement using these modules has been estimated compared to commercial Bisemous Telluride module

Additional file 3: of The soft explosive model of placental mammal evolution

Fossil calibration schemes. Table S3. and Figure S4. (PDF 583 kb

Additional file 2: of The soft explosive model of placental mammal evolution

MCMCtree timetrees. Table S2. Figure S2. and Figure S3. (PDF 525 kb

Additional file 5: of The soft explosive model of placental mammal evolution

Table S4. Fossil record species richness for Eutheria and Mammalia from Albian through to Lutetian. (PDF 90 kb

Additional file 4: of The soft explosive model of placental mammal evolution

GC3 conservation and estimating maximum longevity. Figure S5. (PDF 251 kb

Additional file1: of The soft explosive model of placental mammal evolution

Addressing claims of “zombie” lineages on Phillips’ (2016) timetree. Table S1. and Figure S1. (PDF 588 kb

Additional file 1: Figure S1. of Resolving the evolution of the mammalian middle ear using Bayesian inference

Bayesian inference phylogeny using Rougier et al.’s [21] dataset when cheek tooth characters were excluded. This analysis clarified the placement of the early “symmetrodont” Kuehneotherium outside the mammalian crown. Figure S2. Bayesian inference phylogeny for Luo et al.’s [22] dataset, but with cheek tooth characters excluded from. The “pseudotribosphenic” shuotheriids (purple) fell outside crown mammals and the placement of the enigmatic, fossorial Fruitafossor (yellow) was clarified as grouping closer to therians than to monotremes (green). Table S1. Posterior probabilities. Description: A: Shuotheriidae allowed to group with australosphenidans. B: Constraining Shuotheriidae to fall outside Mammalia. C: Constraining monophyly of the multicuspate haramiyidans and multituberculates. D: Forces Kuehneotherium outside Mammalia. E: Allows the unstable Kuehneotherium to fall freely in the phylogeny. 1: Alternative analyses including Aukstribosphenos and Steropodon with postdentary trough coded as absent. (DOCX 231 kb

Performance in the visuospatial learning task performed at six months of age.

<p>Each data point [control mice (circles), Tau mice (squares), and Swede mice (triangles)] represents the percentage (mean ± SD) of correct decisions per animal and day. The dotted line indicates the chance level of performance.</p

Histology.

<p>After fixation of 18 month-old animals, 50 µm coronal sections were stained with Thioflavin T to label β-amyloid plaques. A) Swede mouse. White arrows indicate plaques in the orbital frontal cortex and anterior olfactory cortex, respectively. B) 18 month-old control mouse without any plaque staining. C) A Z-stack showing a 10 µm diameter plaque, one of the larger ones observed. D) A middle tufted cell of the olfactory bulb showing Tau tangle phenotype in a tested Tau mouse.</p

Performance in the visuospatial memory task performed at 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 18 months of age.

<p>Each data point [control mice (circles), Tau mice (squares), and Swede mice (triangles)] represents the percentage (mean ± SD) of correct decisions across the seven days of testing (left panel), and on the first day of testing (right panel). The dotted line indicates the chance level of performance.</p