With an exploding population and rapid advances in power consuming technologies, the planet faces a critical roadblock in the continued advancement and future sustainability of the human race. In general, research focused on clean energy solutions has not led to viable, world-wide implementable replacements of non-renewable, environmentally toxic sources. Therefore, a disruptive and transformative paradigm shift must take place to further energy efficiency. In response, the proposed EAGER project will develop the foundation of this new regime by designing thermally powered devices. In principle, a thermally powered device can be driven from otherwise rejected heat to reduce the net energy wasted by society. The goal of this proposed initiative is therefore to develop the fundamental electrical, thermal and material physics and engineering to use thermal stimuli to generate usable electrical current and power. In turn, this project will advance the fundamental understanding of heat transport in complex oxides, further the thermal response in thin films and across interfaces when a material is undergoing a structural or phase transition, and define new thermophysical properties of materials based on external electrical of thermal stimuli. The final result of this project will be the demonstration of both an electrically driven thermal switch and a thermally driven electrical switch. This program will discover effective methods to harness and store this waste heat. As the physics, materials and devices that will be developed in this proposed program will be based on and/or powered from recycled thermal energy, these materials and devices are referred to as thermal devices.
This project includes both scientific and engineering relevance along with major societal implications focused on clean energy technologies and increasing energy efficiency. The advancement of the thermophysics governing heat flow in complex oxides will open up a new class of materials for thermal engineering. Furthermore, the study of the phase transitions in these materials will greatly impact current logic and energy technologies. The proposed thermal devices, which will be experimentally realized in this project, will revolutionize the means to recycle wasted energy. The United States consumes approximately 100 quadrillion Btu (100 quads) of energy per year, where only 43% goes to useful work while 57% (or 57 quads/yr) is exhausted into the environment as wasted heat. As this proposed work will focus on thermally driven devices, this will offer an impactful, transformative solution to utilize this waste heat to drive devices and store energy. This proposed work will lay the foundation for the design and development of a wide array of applications and devices that will not rely on non-renewable resources or generate toxic emissions. By using already wasted heat as the driving source of the proposed thermal devices, this proposed EAGER project will directly benefit the energy efficiency in both the United States and abroad.
