• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.79-86
• /
• 2019

Most of low-grad heat (< $200^{\circ}C$) generated from industrial process and human body, is abandoned as waste heat. To harvest the waste heat, the thermoelectrics (TE) technology has been widely investigated so far. However, TE suffers from poor performance and high material cost. As an alternative to the TE device, the thermoelectrical cell (TEC) is gaining growing attention these days. The TEC features several advantages such as high Seebeck coefficient, low cost and design flexibility compared to TE, but its commercial viability was limited by its low heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency. However, recent reports have demonstrated that the performance of TEC can be markedly improved by employing novel electrode/electrolyte materials and by optimizing cell design. This article summarizes the recent progress of TECs in terms of the redox couples, electrolyte solvents and additives, electrode materials and cell design.