Novel paint lets walls produce electricity

The walls of your home could soon produce electricity, thanks to a new thermoelectric paint which captures the waste heat from hot surfaces and converts it into electrical energy, scientists say.
Conventional thermoelectric materials are fabricated as flat, rigid chips. These devices are then attached to irregular-shaped objects that emit waste heat, such as engines, power plants and refrigerators.
However, the incomplete contact between curved surfaces and the flat thermoelectric generators results in heat loss and decrease the overall efficiency.
Scientists from Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), and the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, showed that the thermoelectric paint easily adheres to the surface of any shape.

"I expect that the thermoelectric painting technique can be applied to waste heat recovery from large-scale heat source surfaces, such as buildings, cars, and ship vessels," Jae Sung Son, researcher at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea told 'Phys.Org'.
"For example, the temperature of a building's roof and walls increases to more than 50 degree Celsius in the summer," Son said.
"If we apply thermoelectric paint on the walls, we can convert huge amounts of waste heat into electrical energy," he said.
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.