Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets doped pyroelectric ceramic composite for high-performance thermal energy harvesting

Qingping Wang, Chris R. Bowen, Rhodri Lewis, Jun Chen, Wen Lei, Haibo Zhang, Ming Yu Li, Shenglin Jiang

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Abstract

Recently, recycling energy from wasted heat with pyroelectric materials has received significant attention. However, pyroelectric energy harvesters generally suffer from a low energy efficiency due to the low rates of heat transfer. Here, we report high-performance thermal energy harvesting using novel hybrid pyroelectric ceramics with greatly improved heat transfer and rate of temperature changes. This is achieved by evenly dispersing 0.1 wt% hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) nanosheets into a Pb[(Mn 1/3 Nb 2/3 ) 1/2 (Mn 1/3 Sb 2/3 ) 1/2 ] 0.04 (Zr 0.95 Ti 0.05 ) 0.96 O 3 (lead magnesium niobate-lead antimony-manganese-lead zirconate titanate: PMN-PMS-PZT) ceramic matrix. Due to the vibrations of whole chain and phonon scattering, heat transfer through the hybrid crystalline chain is more efficient than that of unfilled PMN-PMS-PZT. It is demonstrated that the harvested power was increased by up to 65.6%. This work paved an efficient and cost-effective way to largely improve the traditional pyroelectric ceramic for thermal energy harvesting.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)144-152
Number of pages9
JournalNano Energy
Volume60
Early online date13 Mar 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Jun 2019

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. U1532146 , 61675076 , 61705070 , 51672092 , and U1732117 ), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 2017M612449 and 2017T200545 ), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China (Grant No. 2016CFB533 ) and Wuhan Morning Light Plan of Youth Science and Technology (No. 2017050304010299 ). We also would like to acknowledge the Analytical and Testing Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology . Appendix A Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.03.037 . Qingping Wang received her Ph.D. degree in Electronic Science and Technology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in 2018. She is an associate professor in Hubei University of Education. Her current research interest is pyroelectric energy harvesting based on nanomaterials and ceramic materials. Christopher Rhys Bowen has a BSc degree in Materials Science from the University of Bath (1986–1990) and a Ph.D. in Ceramics from the University of Oxford (1990–1993). Post-doctoral work has been undertaken at Tecnische Universität Harburg-Hamburg and University of Leeds (1994–1996). He was Senior Scientist at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency from 1996 to 1998. He joined the University of Bath as a Lecturer in 1998 and is now Professor of Materials. Research areas include energy harvesting, piezoelectric materials, dielectrics and functional ceramics. Rhodri Wyn Charles Lewis has a BEng degree in Sports Engineering (2003–2007) and a Ph.D. in Piezoceramics from the University of Bath (2007–2011). Post-doctoral research into the fabrication of highly ordered nanostructures was undertaken at the University of Bath (2010–2012). He joined Renishaw Plc in 2012 and is now a Materials Scientist working in research and development with interests in piezoelectric devices (ultrasonics and energy harvesting) and additive manufacturing. Dr. Jun Chen is currently a postdoctoral research fellow with Prof. Yi Cui at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Zhong Lin Wang. His research focuses on nanotechnology for energy, sensors, healthcare, and environment in the form of smart textile, wearables, and Internet of things. He has already published 2 books, 86 journal articles and 46 of them are as first/corresponding authors in Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, Nature Communications,Joule, and many others. His current h-index is 53. Lei Wen obtained his Ph.D. degree in Materials from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in 2008, he is a professor at School of Optical and Electronic Information in HUST. His research activities are mainly concerned with microwave dielectric materials and devices for microwave communication. He has undertaken more than 10 research projects supported by the National Natural Science Funds and National Defense Basic Scientific Research, etc. And about 70 academic papers have been published and several research productions have been applied successfully for antenna, resonator and LTCC. Haibo Zhang obtained his Ph.D. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in 2008. He had been a postdoctoral researcher for two and a half years in Kochi University, Japan. Zhang got a faculty position in School of Materials Science and Engineering at HUST in 2011. From 2012 to 2014, he worked as a Humboldt Research Fellow with Professor Jürgen Rödel in University of Darmstadt, Germany. Since 2014 he works as an associate professor in School of materials science and Engineering at HUST. Ming-Yu Li received his Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from Kwangwoon University, Korea in 2016. He is recently a postdoctoral fellow at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). His research interests focus on nanomaterials synthesize, nanostructures fabrication and characterization, functional materials and, energy devices. He serves as guest editor of MDPI Nanomaterials. He has published more than 50 research papers in international journals, and been authorized more than 4 international patents. Shenglin Jiang received his Ph.D. degree in Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). He is a professor in School of Optical and Electronic Information at HUST. His research interests include the ferroelectric and dielectric materials and devices. He has published more than 103 research papers. He is the fellow of the Chinese Materials Research Society, Chinese Journal of Electronics, and the Photoelectronic Technology Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Astronautics. For the details please check the lab website: http://www.afmd.oei.hust.cn .

Keywords

  • Hexagonal boron nitride
  • Pyroelectric ceramic
  • Thermal conductivity
  • Thermal energy harvesting

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • General Materials Science
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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