Promoting Energy Efficiency via a Self?Adaptive Evaporative Cooling Hydrogel

A novel and cost?effective strategy is presented to boost the energy efficiency of semiconductor devices by using a self?adaptive evaporative cooling hydrogel. Water inside the hydrogel can quickly evaporate to dissipate the waste heat generated in semiconductor devices. In dormancy, the hydrogel can harvest ambient water molecules to regenerate itself.High temperature brings adverse impacts on the energy efficiency, and even destroys a semiconductor device. Here, a novel and cost?effective strategy is proposed to boost the energy efficiency of semiconductor devices by using the self?adaptive evaporative cooling of a lithium? and bromine?enriched polyacrylamide hydrogel. Water inside the hydrogel can quickly evaporate to dissipate the waste heat generated by the nugatory carrier transport in the P?N junction. In dormancy, the hydrogel harvests water molecules from the surrounding air to regenerate itself. The hydrogel is demonstrated to low down the operating temperature of a commercial polycrystalline silicon solar cell by 17 °C under one sun condition and enhances its efficiency from 14.5% to 15.5%. It is also capable of increasing the maximum power of a simulated chip by 45% at a fixed operating temperature. The hydrogel is expected to be widely adopted in current semiconductor industry to improve its energy efficiency.

» Author: Shirui Pu, Jia Fu, Yutian Liao, Lurong Ge, Yihao Zhou, Songlin Zhang, Shenlong Zhao, Xiaowei Liu, Xuejiao Hu, Kang Liu, Jun Chen

» Reference: doi:10.1002/adma.201907307

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This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 768737


                   




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