In Inorganic Functional Materials Research Institute, we are exploring new functional thermoelectric materials.
Humanity urgently required solutions to energy and environmental problems, which are now reaching crisis levels. As one such solution, thermoelectric power generated from the vast amounts of waste heat emitted by automobiles, factories, and similar sources is expected to develop in the near future as a resource-conserving from of energy. In order to realize the thermoelectric power generation, thermoelectric materials not only possessing high conversion efficiency but also being composed of non-toxic and abundantly available elements are indispensable. So, we are exploring new thermoelectric materials which can convert waste heat into electric energy.