Flexible thermoelectric generator fabricated by screen printing method from suspensions based on Bi 2 Te 2.8 Se 0.2 and Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3

In this work, a method for the formation of legs of n- and p-type thermoelements by screen printing using zinc phosphate cement and aqueous alkaline sodium silicate solution as binders was developed. Thermoelectric properties of thick films were investigated. A prototype of a flexible thermoelectric generator (TEG) was developed and fabricated using the results obtained by the screen printing method from suspensions based on Bi 2 Te 3 -Sb 2 Te 3 (p-type) and Bi 2 Te 3 -Bi 2 Se 3 (n-type) with an aqueous alkaline sodium silicate solution as binder. The developed prototype includes 6 pairs of n- and p-type legs connected by copper wires, and a silicone matrix was used as a flexible base. The prototype showed that at room temperature (298 K) the output voltages of the flexible thick film TEG at temperature differences Δ T =2.5 and 10.0 K are 0.8 and 14.8 mV, respectively.