2025/06/25 by Rajkumar Sarma, Sarma, Rajkumar, Steffen Hardt +1
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Phase Change Materials Research #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.20149
openalex publication_date 2025/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/09 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
When dissolved, weak electrolytes only partially dissociate into ions in a temperature-dependent process. We show herein that such incomplete dissociation yields an enormous thermoelectric response in an electrolyte-filled nanochannel along which a temperature gradient is applied. For this purpose, an extended version of the Nernst-Planck equations is developed that takes into account the temperature-dependent dissociation-association equilibrium. The results indicate that in this way, Seebeck coefficients can be achieved that outperform all previously reported values.