Research

Tremendous amount of waste heat is released from everyday life. This thermal energy is typically available at temperatures below 100 ℃. A thermocell is an electrochemical cell in which electrical energy is generated by the temperature difference between two half-cells. Using the thermocell, waste thermal energy can be effectively converted into an useful electric energy.

One of the great features of the thermocell, in contrast to the solidstate thermoelectrics, is that the electrolyte involved in the thermocell can flow through the cooling system as a coolant. Flow thermocell possibly harvest the thermal energy from the liquid system by circulating an electrolyte instead of water coolant.

Despite remarkable strides in science and technology, the strategy for spilled oil collection has remained almost the same over the past several decades. The graphene vessel devised here can bring about an important yet basic change in the strategy for spilled oil collection. When it is placed on the oil-covered seawater, the graphene vessel selectively separates the oil, then collects and stores the collected oil in the vessel all by itself without any external power inputs.