A Review of Advances in Thermophotovoltaics for Power Generation and Waste Heat Harvesting
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MRS Advances © 2019 Materials Research Society DOI: 10.1557/adv.2019.342
A Review of Advances in Thermophotovoltaics for Power Generation and Waste Heat Harvesting Abigail Licht, Nicole Pfiester, Dante DeMeo, John Chivers, and Thomas E. Vandervelde The Renewable Energy and Applied Photonics Laboratories, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155 USA
ABSTRACT
The vast majority of power generation in the United States today is produced through the same processes as it was in the late-1800s: heat is applied to water to generate steam, which turns a turbine, which turns a generator, generating electrical power. Researchers today are developing solid-state power generation processes that are more befitting the 21st-century. Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells directly convert radiated thermal energy into electrical power, through a process similar to how traditional photovoltaics work. These TPV generators, however, include additional system components that solar cells do not incorporate. These components, selective-emitters and filters, shape the way the radiated heat is transferred into the TPV cell for conversion and are critical for its efficiency. Here, we present a review of work performed to improve the components in these systems. These improvements will help enable TPV generators to be used with nearly any thermal source for both primary power generation and waste heat harvesting.
Introduction Thermophotovoltaics (TPVs) convert infrared radiation, or heat, into electricity. TPVs have a wide-range of applications due to the fact that they can be paired with any heat source. Applications include, for example, converting heat from combustion in a microscale battery [1]̽[7], from radioisotopes for deep-space power generation [8], [9], and from high-temperature industrial processes for recovering waste-heat [10]. A TPV system consists of three main components: a heat source, an emitter, and a TPV diode, Figure 1. The heat source is typically between 1,000K and 2,000 K. The emitter, which acts as an intermediate stage between the heat source and the TPV diode, allows for shaping of the radiant spectrum. The emitter can either be a blackbody that emits across all wavelengths, or a selective-emitter designed to radiate a narrow band of wavelengths matched to the TPV diode. In addition to spectral shaping at the emitter stage, the spectrum may be further refined through filtering prior to the diode stage, Figure 1.
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The core of a TPV system is the photovoltaic diode; it is the component responsible for converting the incident radiation into usable power. The TPV diode generates a current and a voltage via the photovoltaic effect. Specifically, if the incident light contains photons with energy greater than the bandgap of the diode ma
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