"Power generation from environmentally friendly sources has led to surging interest in thermoelectrics. There has been a move toward alternative thermoelectric materials with enhanced performance through materials and structures that utilize common and safer elements and alternative mechanistic approaches while increasing processing latitude and decreasing cost. This wide-ranging volume examines this progress and future prospects with the new technologies, ease of processing and cost as major considerations, and will benefit active researchers, students and others interested in cutting-edge work in thermoelectric materials. Innovative Thermoelectric Materials incorporates the contributions of a group of recognized experts in thermoelectric materials, many of whom were the first to introduce various materials systems into thermoelectric systems. The perspectives brought to this evolving subject will provide important insights on which those developing the field can build, and will inspire new research directions for the future."--Provided by publisher.

Complex metal alloys (CMAs) comprise a huge group of largely unknown alloys and compounds, where many phases are formed with crystal structures based on giant unit cells containing atom clusters, ranging from tens of to more than thousand atoms per unit cell. In these phases, for many phenomena, the physical length scales are substantially smaller than the unit-cell dimension. Hence, these materials offer unique combinations of properties which are mutually exclusive in conventional materials, such as metallic electric conductivity combined with low thermal conductivity, good light absorption with high-temperature stability, high metallic hardness with reduced wetting by liquids, etc.This book is the second of a series of books issued yearly as a deliverable to the European Community of the School established within the European Network of Excellence CMA. Written by reputed experts in the fields of metal physics, surface physics, surface chemistry, metallurgy, and process engineering, this book brings together expertise found inside as well as outside the network to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in CMAs.

The search for cleaner, cheaper, smaller and more efficient energy technologies has to a large extent been motivated by the development of new materials. The aim of this collection of articles is therefore to focus on what materials-based solutions can offer and show how the rationale design and improvement of their physical and chemical properties can lead to energy-production alternatives that have the potential to compete with existing technologies. In terms of alternative means to generate electricity that utilize renewable energy sources, the most dramatic breakthroughs for both mobile (i.e., transportation) and stationary applications are taking place in the fields of solar and fuel cells. And from an energy-storage perspective, exciting developments can be seen emerging from the fields of rechargeable batteries and hydrogen storage.

Power generation from environmentally friendly sources has led to surging interest in thermoelectrics. There has been a move toward alternative thermoelectric materials with enhanced performance through materials and structures that utilize common and safer elements and alternative mechanistic approaches while increasing processing latitude and decreasing cost. This wide-ranging volume examines this progress and future prospects with the new technologies, ease of processing and cost as major considerations, and will benefit active researchers, students and others interested in cutting-edge work in thermoelectric materials. Innovative Thermoelectric Materials incorporates the contributions of a group of recognized experts in thermoelectric materials, many of whom were the first to introduce various materials systems into thermoelectric systems. The perspectives brought to this evolving subject will provide important insights on which those developing the field can build, and will inspire new research directions for the future.

Your guide to advanced thermoelectric materials Written by a distinguished group of contributors, this book provides comprehensive coverage of the most up-to-date information on all aspects of advanced thermoelectric materials — ranging from system biology, diagnostics, imaging, image-guided therapy, therapeutics, biosensors, and translational medicine and personalized medicine, as well as the much broader task of covering most topics of biomedical research.

Thermoelectrics for Power Generation - A Look at Trends in the Technology is the first part of the InTech collection of international community works in the field of thermoelectric power generation. The authors from many counties have presented in this book their achievements and vision for the future development in different aspects of thermoelectric power generation. Remarkably, this hot topic unites together efforts of researchers and engineers from all continents of our planet. The reader will find in the book a lot of new interesting information concerning prospective materials for thermoelectric generators, both inorganic and organic; results of theoretical studies of materials characteristics; novel methods and apparatus for measuring performance of thermoelectric materials and devices; and thermoelectric power generator simulation, modeling, design, and practice.

This book summarises the significant progress made in organic thermoelectric materials, focusing on effective routes to minimize thermal conductivity and maximize power factor.