High Performance And Low Cost Thermoelectric Generators: Advanced Materials, Additive Manufacturing, And Applications (Energy Harvesting USA 2016)

This talk will provide an overview of recent breakthroughs of thermoelectric materials, manufacturing methods, and energy harvesting and waste heat recovery applications. The talk will also highlight our recent breakthroughs on printing flexible thermoelectric devices for powering flexible electronics, sensors and wearables.

Dr. Yanliang Zhang is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, and the director of Advanced Energy Lab in Boise State University. Dr. Zhang obtained his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2011. He has over 10 years of extensive research and development experience in thermoelectric materials, device manufacturing and applications established in both industry and academia. Dr. Zhang has been the principal investigator for several research projects with total funding exceeding $12 million. Dr. Zhang's research work has been published on high-impact journals, including Nature Materials, Nano Letters, Applied Physics Letters, and has resulted in multiple patents that are being developed into groundbreaking commercial products.

Founded by Professor Yanliang Zhang in 2013, the Advanced Energy Lab (AEL) in Boise State University focuses on cutting-edge research on nanotechnology, advanced energy technologies, and advanced manufacturing. The AEL integrates both basic and applied research into a coherent body. While discovering new sciences of nanostructured materials, we are constantly pursuing groundbreaking applications that change the world we are living in. The AEL has pioneered research on high-temperature nanostructured thermoelectric generators, and flexible thermoelectric devices with record high performances. The research at AEL is sponsored by U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation and private industry. The AEL is passionate on commercializing our technology and making real social impact with strong industrial partnership.