Taming the Lost Heat, Training and Research in Thermoelectrics

这项工业流创造提案的重点是提高能源效率，为加拿大制造业提供优势，并应对全球气候变化。有一个独特的机会，可以通过回收因加热而损失的一半以上的能量来提高效率。1实现这一需求的关键工具是热电(TE)材料，其中温差产生电压(反之亦然)。将纳米技术应用于TE的最新进展表明，它们的效率可以翻一番2，这将在美国减少1.6万亿Btu/年的工业能源消耗。3 TE还将影响其他一些行业，包括服务器、住宅和商业冷却系统，以及汽车燃油效率。下一代TE设备需要以前所未有的控制来制造、建模和测量材料。因此，利益相关者需要能够跨学科工作、评估新技术和实施科学成果的高技能员工。我们将通过与各种学术、工业和政府合作伙伴建立一个CREATE计划来实现这一目标。因此，该联盟将处理自然资源和能源以及制造业的优先领域。

This industrial stream CREATE proposal focuses on gains in energy efficiency to provide advantages to Canadian manufacturing and address global climate change. There is a unique opportunity to improve efficiency by recapturing the more than half of all energy lost to heat.1 A key tool to achieve this need are thermoelectric (TE) materials where a temperature differential generates a voltage (or vice-versa). Recent advances in applying nano-technology to TE suggest their efficiency can be doubled2, which in the U.S. would reduce industry's energy use by 1.6 Trillion Btu/year.3 TE will also impact a number of other industries including Server, Residential, and Commercial cooling systems, as well as automotive fuel efficiency. Next generation TE devices require making, modeling, and measuring materials with unprecedented controls. Thus stakeholders require highly skilled employees capable of working across disciplines, evaluating new technologies, and implementing scientific results. We will achieve this by building a CREATE program with various academic, industrial and governmental partners. Thus this consortium will address the priority areas of Natural Resources and Energy as well as Manufacturing.