The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network has published a paper on next-generation thermoelectric and thermionic devices - exploring emerging technologies and market opportunities.
"Thermal energy harvesting and solid state cooling represents a global £1bn industry for improved products in a range of markets and application scenarios," claimed the KTN. "However, barriers exist to widespread adoption."
The event which sparked the report was held in April 2011, hosted in partnership with Johnson Matthey and Royal Holloway University of London, saw presentations from key players in industry and academia including Jaguar LandRover, and highlighted the commercial potential of harvesting energy from waste heat, but also the significant barriers to increasing conversion efficiency, and finding alternative, sustainable, thermoelectric materials.
"The market pull for harvesting waste recovery is growing, led primarily by the automotive sector," said the KTN. "The paper concludes that significant new market opportunities would open up if a new generation of higher efficiency and more sustainable materials could be developed, for example in harvesting: automotive and HGV exhaust heat, solar thermal energy, and powering sensors."
Electronics Weekly has read the report, which is available to free to NanoKTN members.
There is a fair amount of information on the technology, and it looks like a lot of thought has gone into predicting market opportunities.
For example: it points out that 60% of the energy in petrol leaves a car as heat down the exhaust, and that harvesting even a modest fraction of this could deliver the same power as an altenator and add a couple of miles per gallon - mpg that are increasingly hard to find by other means.