Take advantage of the Peltier's thermoelectric cooling properties to keep the Gorilla Glass from melting.
Similarly, attaching thermoelectric devices to the flues of power plants could generate more useful power.
Thermoelectric materials convert low-grade heat wasted in industrial processes or exhaust systems of a vehicle into electricity.
If such heaters were covered with thermoelectric generators the sun's rays could be put to sequential use.
Furthermore, even with this recent rain, Venezuela still faces substantial problems in both its thermoelectric and hydroelectric sectors.
The suggestion is to use similar radioisotope thermoelectric generators like the one found in the Curiosity rover.
In their view, three things are needed to create a workable solar-thermoelectric device.
For example, in 2005, the power industry used 200 million gallons a day to generate electricity via thermoelectric systems.
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Dr Kanatzidis argues that wherever heat is generated as part of power generation, thermoelectric devices could help extract more useful energy.
As the radioisotope decays, it produces heat energy that is converted by thermoelectric materials into the electricity that powers the space probe.
Then, the exhaust heat from the bottom plate of the thermoelectric device would be used in the traditional way to warm water up.
The second is to choose a thermoelectric material which conducts heat badly (so that different parts remain at different temperatures) but electricity well.
This is a plutonium-driven device that produces power far more efficiently than the traditional Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) used hitherto on space missions, such as on Cassini.
Dr Kanatzidis is developing new thermoelectric materials designed to be capable of converting up to 20% of the heat that would otherwise be wasted into useful electricity.
Thermoelectric coupling uses heat from the decay of a radioactive fuel (as opposed to the full-scale nuclear fission which powers a reactor on Earth) as its energy source.
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Over the past three years, thermoelectric materials have attracted intense interest from energy researchers trying to turn exhaust heat from automobiles into electricity that can be used by the vehicle.
These are compounds of oxygen, sulphur, selenium and tellurium that are thought to be particularly suitable for thermoelectric applications because their structure allows electric currents to flow while blocking thermal currents.
Oliver Delaire, a scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is spearheading research with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using neutron scattering and computer simulations to tweak the structure and dynamics of thermoelectric materials.
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