Green Energy Sources Based on Thermo-Electrochemical Cells for Electricity Generating from Transport, Engineering Buildings and Environment Waste Heat

Harvesting of low-grade waste heat and conversion it into electricity is a promising strategy for increasing the efficiency of various engineering systems in road construction and of renewable energy development direction. Thermo-electrochemical cells can directly convert low-grade thermal energy (Temperature of heat sources lower than 150 ℃) into electricity without contamination of the environment and consuming any materials. The new type of electrode material based on nickel hollow microspheres has been presented in this work. It was demonstrated, that nickel hollow microspheres-based thermo-electrochemical cells can provide the highest Seebeck coefficient for aqueous electrolytes-based thermo-cells. The results of the investigation of the composition and structure of nickel hollow microspheres-based electrodes are presented in the work. Because of the low cost of nickel microspheres, developed thermocells may become commercially viable for harvesting low-grade thermal energy. It is supposed that the effect obtained with Ni electrodes characterized with well-developed surface area allows producing the commercial thermo-electrochemical cells for waste heat harvesting.