KFU and Kazan Physical-Technical Institute working on thermoelectric technology
A grant for a joint research of niobium oxide and strontium oxide synthesis together with Indian colleagues has been allocated by the Russian Science Foundation; a paper saw light in Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials.
The subject of the research – double perovskite, according to the members of the research team, was not chosen by chance. Today, energy is a key condition for progress. People’s demand for energy is met by fossil fuel supplies. Interestingly, only one-third of the primary energy consumed is used efficiently, while two-thirds is wasted by turning it into heat. Physicists from KPTI and KFU are engaged in the search for opportunities to transfer useless and even harmful heating of the environment to the creation of new energy sources.
KPTI and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (head of Indian team is Professor Tanmoy Maiti) study materials for electricity generation. The energy is planned to be obtained from the processed heat of automobile exhaust pipes, industrial objects, and residential heating. The materials they plan to use are double oxides like perovskite, which exhibits a large Seebeck coefficient at temperatures well above room temperature, which will allow waste heat to be converted into electrical energy.
“The experiment is based on the classical Seebeck effect, when we observe temperature differences on different sides of the working body. Our research differs in that it does not take place in the range of room temperatures. We are working with very high values – around 600 degrees Kelvin. Where temperatures reach the order of hundreds and thousands of degrees Kelvin, that is, where there are hot shops and heated furnaces, in the future it will be possible to use double perovskites to store energy, which is enough, for example, to operate lighting devices,” comments Professor of the Department of General Physics of KFU, Lead Research Associate of KPTI Rushana Yeryomina. “We intend to exploit two paradigms, the first is the fundamental aspect related to the unusual magnetic properties in double perovskites leading to low-dimensional magnetism, and to use the Mott transition in these oxides to maximize the energy conversion efficiency, which has so far been elusive.”
Experimental data on the magnetism of double perovskites has been obtained under the leadership of Lead Research Associate Ruslan Batulin (Laboratory of Quantum Simulators). The joint Russian-Indian project will provide new knowledge on fundamental magnetic, dielectric, and transport properties of double perovskites of the composition (CaBaSr)2B’B”O6 (B’; B” = Fe, Co, Ni, Cr, Mn, Mo, Ti, Nb), as well as construct a model of 3D-ion exchange bonds and determine the type of magnetic ordering.