Microscale solid-state thermal diodes enabling ambient temperature thermal circuits for energy applications
Type
ArticleAuthors
Wang, SongCottrill, Anton L.
Kunai, Yuichiro
Toland, Aubrey R.
Liu, Pingwei
Wang, Wen-Jun

Strano, Michael S.
KAUST Grant Number
OSR-2015-Sensors-2700Date
2017Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/626714
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Thermal diodes, or devices that transport thermal energy asymmetrically, analogous to electrical diodes, hold promise for thermal energy harvesting and conservation, as well as for phononics or information processing. The junction of a phase change material and phase invariant material can form a thermal diode; however, there are limited constituent materials available for a given target temperature, particularly near ambient. In this work, we demonstrate that a micro and nanoporous polystyrene foam can house a paraffin-based phase change material, fused to PMMA, to produce mechanically robust, solid-state thermal diodes capable of ambient operation with Young's moduli larger than 11.5 MPa and 55.2 MPa above and below the melting transition point, respectively. Moreover, the composites show significant changes in thermal conductivity above and below the melting point of the constituent paraffin and rectification that is well-described by our previous theory and the Maxwell–Eucken model. Maximum thermal rectifications range from 1.18 to 1.34. We show that such devices perform reliably enough to operate in thermal diode bridges, dynamic thermal circuits capable of transforming oscillating temperature inputs into single polarity temperature differences – analogous to an electrical diode bridge with widespread implications for transient thermal energy harvesting and conservation. Overall, our approach yields mechanically robust, solid-state thermal diodes capable of engineering design from a mathematical model of phase change and thermal transport, with implications for energy harvesting.Citation
Wang S, Cottrill AL, Kunai Y, Toland AR, Liu P, et al. (2017) Microscale solid-state thermal diodes enabling ambient temperature thermal circuits for energy applications. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 19: 13172–13181. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c7cp02445b.Sponsors
The authors also acknowledge the Office of Naval Research (ONR), under award N00014-16-1-2144, for support for experimental efforts to synthesize diodes and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), under award OSR-2015-Sensors-2700, for their financial support of applications to sensor nodes. The US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under Award Grant DE-FG02-08ER46488 Mod 0008 is acknowledged for support of mathematical modeling and computation relating to energy systems related to nanomaterials. The authors are thankful for the support of Lin Guangzhao & Hu Guozan Graduate Education International Exchange Fund from Zhejiang University.Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1039/c7cp02445b