Screen printed flexible Bi₂Te₃-Sb₂Te₃ based thermoelectric generator

This paper reports the fabrication and testing of Bismuth Tellurium (Bi₂Te₃) – Antimony Tellurium (Sb₂Te₃) based thermocouples using screen printing technology. In this study, screen printable thermoelectric pastes were developed and the transport properties of cured material were measured. The dimension of each planer thermoleg is 39.3 mm × 3 mm with a thickness of 67 μm for Bi₂Te₃ leg and 62 μm for Sb₂Te₃ leg. A single thermocouple with this dimension can generate a voltage of 6 mV and a peak output power of 48 nW at a temperature difference of 20°C. The calculated Seebeck coefficient of a single thermocouple is in the range of 262 – 282 μV/K. The Seebeck coefficient at room temperature were measured to be −134 – −119 μV/K and 128 – 134 μV/K for Bi₂Te₃ and Sb₂Te₃ respectively. This work demonstrates that the low-cost screen printing technology and low-temperature materials are promising for the fabrication of flexible thermoelectric generators (TEGs).