Giant thermopower of ionic gelatin near room temperature

Abstract

Harvesting heat from the environment into electricity has the potential to power Internet-of-things (IoT) sensors, freeing them from cables or batteries and thus making them especially useful for wearable devices. We demonstrate a giant positive thermopower of 17.0 millivolts per degree Kelvin in a flexible, quasi-solid-state, ionic thermoelectric material using synergistic thermodiffusion and thermogalvanic effects. The ionic thermoelectric material is a gelatin matrix modulated with ion providers (KCl, NaCl, and KNO₃) for thermodiffusion effect and a redox couple [Fe(CN)₆ ^4-/Fe(CN)₆ ^3-] for thermogalvanic effect. A proof-of-concept wearable device consisting of 25 unipolar elements generated more than 2 volts and a peak power of 5 microwatts using body heat. This ionic gelatin shows promise for environmental heat-to-electric energy conversion using ions as energy carriers.