New publications (3 March 2024)

We have published two new papers related to thermo-electrochemical cells and ionic thermoelectric supercapacitors:

M. Muddasar, N. Menéndez, Á. Quero, M. A. Nasiri, A. Cantarero, J. García-Cañadas, C. M. Gómez, M. N. Collins, M. Culebras. Highly-efficient sustainable ionic thermoelectric materials using lignin-derived hydrogels. Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials 7, 47 (2024).

S. Castro-Ruiz, J. García-Cañadas. Nanostructured and porous antimony-doped tin oxide as electrode material for the heat-to-electricity energy conversion in thermo-electrochemical cells. Electrochemistry Communications 161, 107683 (2024).

Mauricio Solis de la Fuente leaves TESLab (26 February 2024)

Visit of André Pereira from the Univeristy of Porto (6 February 2024)

In the last week of January, TESLab welcomed Dr. André Pereira to spend a few days in our lab. André was the coordinator of the H2020 FET-Open project WipTherm and work in many energy conversion areas. The researcher Joana Teixeira also came with him and during their visit we analysed ionic thermoelectric supercapacitors and discussed ideas and project experiences.

Seminar at Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy) (19 January 2024)

Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas was invited on the 16th of January to give a seminar at the Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Informatiche e Matematiche at the Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Modena, Italy). He presented in the seminar, titled Connecting thermoelectricity and electrochemistry to convert heat into electricity, some of the results achieved in the UncorrelaTEd project and had discussions with different researchers. We would like to thank Dr. Francesco Rosella, who acted as the host, for his kind and friendly attention.

New patent (4 December 2023)

We have recently been granted a new patent related to the parallel combination of electronic conductors with redox electrolytes to increase the thermoelectric performance: J. García-Cañadas, L. Márquez-García, M. Solis-de la Fuente, S. Castro-Ruiz. Thermoelectric devices influenced by redox species. Spanish patent ES2934182 B2 (30/11/2023).

Sergio Castro-Ruiz obtains the best oral presentation award at the Symposium of Young Chemistry Researchers (23 November 2023)

Last week, our PhD student Sergio Castro-Ruiz attended the XIX Symposium of Young Chemistry Researchers in Murcia (Spain), where he presented a talk titled ‘Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Study of a Thermo-electrochemical Cell that Converts Heat into Electricity’. He obtained the best oral presentation award. Congratulations!!

Our undergraduate student Víctor Mendiola completes his Final Degree Project (27 October 2023)

Today, Víctor Mendiola has successfully defended his Final Degree Project. The project is titled ‘Design, fabrication and analysis of an instrument to measure thermal conductivity of liquids and phase change materials using a thermoelectric device’. We wish him all the best after his successful graduation.

TESLab joins the Materland outreach and dissemination project (4 October 2023)

This month, the continuation of the Materland project has started. In this continuation project, TESLab participates to contribute to the outreach and dissemination activities of the project. Materland, the Adventure Continues, is its name. It has been funded by FECYT under the Call to support to promote scientific, technological and innovation culture. Here you can follow the project and see all the content already generated.

TESLab participates in Science Go to School (European Researchers’ Night) (29 September 2023)

Today, Jorge García Cañadas and Mauricio Solis de la Fuente have been showing materials-related technologies (thermoelectrics, electrochromics and optical fiber) to the general public at the Science Goes to School outreach activity organised by Universitat Jaume I at the Ágora. A lot of people attended to the TESLab booth, specially secondary school students with their parents. It was a nice atmosphere and opportunity to go out of the lab and communicate our activities.

TESLab participation at ECT2023 (28 September 2023)

Different TESLab members participated in the European Conference on Thermoelectrics 2023 that took place a few weeks ago in Prague. The complete list of contributions can be seen in our Conferences and seminars section. This is the last conference planned for this year. It has been the year that we have attended the highest number of conferences.

The International Workshop on Thermo-electrochemical Devices concluded (20 September 2023)

From the 7th to the 8th of September TESLab organised the International Workshop on Thermo-electrochemical Devices 2023 in Benicàssim (Spain). A total of 24 people attended in-person and 6 on-line. They came from different countries around the world (Spain, Sweden, France, Germany, Ireland, UK, Italy, Japan, China and South Korea). The event was a success and it is intended to have a continuation in two-year time in Japan. Thanks to all the researchers that contributed.

New articles published (20 July 2023)

Two new articles have been published recently. Check them out:

• M. Aljaghtham, G. Song, J. García-Cañadas, B. Beltrán-Pitarch. Prismatic Spreading–Constriction Expression for the Improvement of Impedance Spectroscopy Models and a More Accurate Determination of the Internal Thermal Contact Resistances of Thermoelectric Modules. ACS Applied Electronic Materials 5, 3373 (2023).
• S. Castro-Ruiz, L. Márquez-García, M. Solis-de la Fuente, B. Beltrán-Pitarch, A. Mota-Babiloni, F. Vidan, P. Íñigo-Rabinal, G. Guisado-Barrios, J. García-Cañadas. Power Factor Improvement in a Solid-Liquid Thermoelectric System Formed by Sb:SnO2 in Contact with a Chromium Complex Solution. Sustainable Energy & Fuels (in press).

TESLab presence at different conferences in May – July 2023 (19 July 2023)

This year, different members of TESLab have disseminated results in many conferences. At the end of May, Sergio Castro and Dr. Mauricio Solis attended the E-MRS 2023 Spring Meeting in Strasbourg (France). Later, they also presented results, together with Dr. Jorge García at the International Conference on Thermoelectrics 2023 in Seattle (USA). Finally, at the beginning of July, Dr. Mauricio Solis and Dr. Jorge García attended the 12th International Conference on Porous Metals and Metal Foams (MetFoam 2023). The list of all the contributions can be seen in our “Conferences and seminars” section.

TESLab will be at the upcoming European Conference on Thermoelectrics 2023 in Prague as well, in September 2023.

TESLab organises the International Workshop on Thermo-electrochemical Devices (IWTED2023) (5 April 2023)

TESLab organises from the 7th to the 8th of September 2023 the International Workshop on Thermo-electrochemical Devices 2023 in Benicàssim (Spain). The event will take place both in-person and on-line via Zoom. The main topics covered by the workshop are (i) thermocells, (ii) ionic thermoelectric supercapacitors and (iii) other thermo-electrochemical devices. It will take place at the lovely Palasiet Thalasso Clinic & Hotel, which is located at the foot of a small hill by the Mediterranean sea. The workshop is co-funded by the European project UncorrelaTEd, so we have been able to keep reasonably low registration fees. Xavier Crispin, Sawako Nakamae and Leigh Aldous are confirmed as invited speakers. All the workshop information can be found here.

TESLab at the 3rd Iberian Thermoelectric Workshop (31 March 2023)

During Thursday and Friday (30th and 31st of March) took place the 3rd Iberian Thermoelectric Workshop in Lisbon. Jorge García-Cañadas and Sergio Castro-Ruiz from TESLab attended the event and presented different contributions.

Jorge García-Cañadas gave an invited talk titled “Influencing the thermoelectric properties of materials using redox electrolytes” and contributed with a poster: “Impedance spectroscopy: an excellent tool to fully characterize a thermoelectric device”. Sergio Castro-Ruiz delivered an oral talk titled “A Cr complex solution able to produce a 2.5 times power factor improvement in a nanostructured and porous Sb:SnO2 film”. In addition to this, we presented a second poster titled “PDADMA-based solid electrolytes to significantly enhance the power factor of a thermoelectric oxide film”.

It was really nice to see again the Iberian thermoelectric community and we really thank Antonio Pereira, Elsa Lopes and Francisco Brito for the organisation of the event.

A new PhD student joins TESLab (1 February 2023)

Md Mahmudur Rahman has joined us this month as PhD student. He has been funded by a Santiago Grisolía project from Generalitat Valenciana for 4 years. His PhD will be related to the improvement of thermoelectric properties of porous films using electrochemical methods.

TESLab participates in a new national project (7 December 2022)

A new national project from the “Strategic projects oriented to the ecological and digital transition” programme has been awarded to the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, which acts as the coordinator. The project is titled “Sustainable thermoelectric materials to generate electrical power from waste heat” and aims at developing sustainable thermoelectric materials with tailored electrical and thermal properties, which can be applied at different temperature ranges to recover any kind of waste heat through a holistic approach, from the synthesis to the recycling process. TESLab participates in the characterisation of materials using impedance spectroscopy. More details here.

TESLab at the 15th International Workshop on Impedance Spectroscopy (11 November 2022)

A few weeks ago, Dr. Jorge García Cañadas and Sergio Castro Ruiz presented in the IWIS workshop two on-line talks about impedance models in thermoelectrics and thermo-electrochemical cells, respectively. The workshop took place from the 27th to the 30th of September and compiled really nice talks about the use of this technique in different fields. The conference papers will be published in the coming months at IEEE.

TESLab participation at Mednight Go to School (10 November 2022)

A new general public dissemination event, Mednight GTS, under the European Researchers’ Night took place on the 30th of September 2022 at Universitat Jaume I. As last year, TESLab had a booth were we showed thermoelectric materials, electrochromic displays and the optical fibre to the general public. It was really nice to be out of the lab showing science to primary and secondary school students and the general public. We received the visit of around 150 people during the event.

TESLab at the European Conference on Thermoelectrics in Barcelona (20 September 2022)

The European Conference on Thermoelectrics 2022 took place in Barcelona from the 14th to the 16th of September. After several years with no in-person thermoelectric conferences, it was a pleasure to meet again many friends and colleagues and know new researchers in the field. TESLab presented three posters at the event and one invited talk by Dr. Jorge García Cañadas (see our Conferences and Seminars section for details). Many partners of the UncorrelaTEd project also attended, it was nice to meet all of them.

The undergraduate student Víctor Mendiola starts at TESLab (4 July 2022)

Víctor Mendiola, student of the 4th course of Mechanical Engineering at Universitat Jaume I, has started today his Final Degree Project and internship with us. He will work on the development of a new instrument to measure the thermal conductivity of liquids by means of impedance spectroscopy from July to September.

TESLab participation at the National Materials Congress and MaterDivulga (4 July 2022)

After several years with no in-person participation in conferences due to the pandemic, TESLab members attended again to a conference the last week of June. In this case, Dr. Mauricio Solis de la Fuente and Sergio Castro Ruiz gave oral presentations at the XVI National Materials Congress that took place in Ciudad Real (Spain). Their talks were titled “Large increase of electrical conductivity without a significant variation of the Seebeck coefficient in nanostructured Sb:SnO2 films produced by the presence of the PDADMAC solid electrolyte” and “Analysis of the performance of a thermo-electrochemical cell for the conversion of heat into electricity by means of impedance spectroscopy”, respectively. Moreover, Dr. Jorge García Cañadas gave a talk at the Education symposium of the MaterDivulga conference, which took place one day before the National Materials Congress. It was really nice to interact again with other researchers face to face.

New publication (9 May 2022)

We have pubished a new article in the Journal of Energy Storage. Its title is: Equivalent circuit definition and calendar aging analysis of commercial Li(Ni_xMn_yCo_z)O₂/graphite pouch cells. It gathers the main results of the project Experimental analysis and characterisation of aging phenomena in NMC Li-ion batteries in which we worked in collaboration with several colleagues of the Electrical Engineering area of our deparment.

Animated video to explain the UncorrelaTEd project (21 April 2022)

Recently, Nocla Films has produced a very nice animated video to explain the concept of the UncorrelaTEd project. Enjoy it!! (Spanish version here).

TESLab participates in FirUJICiencia 2022 (7 April 2022)

TESLab has participated in the most important science dissemination event organised by Universitat Jaume I, FirUJICiencia, which takes place every year. In the event, TESLab showed at its booth the conversion of heat to electricity with thermoelectric materials, how electrochromic displays work, and the optical fibre.

New publication (10 March 2022)

We have pubished a new article in the Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics journal. Its title is: Defect governed zinc-rich columnar AZO thin film and contact interface for enhanced performance of thermocouples. It is the result of the collaboration with our friend Luo Bingwei from the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials.

Our undergraduate student Marc Carbó completes his Final Degree Project (31 January 2022)

Our undergraduate student, Marc Carbó, has successfully defended his Final Degree Project today. The project is titled ‘Evaluation of thermoelectric generators by means of impedance spectroscopy’. We wish all the best after his successful graduation.

New publication (15 November 2021)

We have pubished a new article in the ACS Applied Electronic Materials journal. Its title is: Impedance Spectroscopy Analysis of Thermoelectric Modules Fabricated with Metallic Outer External Layers. It is the result of the analysis by impedance spectroscopy of modules that has Cu or Al as outer external layers. They were kindly sent to us by the Korean company Jeongkwan Co. Ltd. We visited its booth when we attended the International Conference on Thermoelectrics in 2019 in Korea.

Our undergraduate student Marc Carbó returns from Linseis (2 November 2021)

After completing his internship at Linseis, one of the leading companies in thermal analysis instrumentation, our undergraduate student, Marc Carbó, has returned to TESLab, where he will be working with a scholarship during November and December in the project titled “Development of impedance spectroscopy as a new tool to characterise and evaluate the conversion of heat to electricity using thermoelectric devices and Generators” which is funded by our university.

Dissemination of our research at the European Researchers’ Night (27 September 2021)

Last Friday, TESLab participated in The European Researchers’ Night, whose aim is to approach science to citizenship. Within The European Researchers’ Night, Universitat Jaume I works together with other universities and institutions in the Mediterranean Night of Women Researchers (MEDNIGHT 2021), which organised during the evening of the 24th of September different outreach activities at the pavillion of the university.

In the event, TESLab showed at its booth different technologies within materials science: the conversion of heat to electricity with thermoelectric materials, how electrochromic displays work, and the optical fibre. In addition, a poster of the UncorrelaTEd project was exhibited at the European Corner of the event. It was a really nice evening and we enjoyed being out of the lab showing our research to people of all ages.

Summary of the first year results of the UncorrelaTEd project (7 September 2021)

A brief summary of the results achieved during the first year (2020) of the UncorrelaTEd project has been published after the first year reporting period. These are the main results:

• Nanostructured antimony-doped SnO2 films of different porosity have been prepared.
• The processes that produced unprecedented power factor improvements above 35 times in these films have been identified, and a new strategy has been demonstrated which allows a metallic material, e.g. Pt, to reach a Seebeck coefficient value above 1 mV/K without a significant variation of its electrical conductivity, which can lead to extremely large efficiencies never achieved before. A patent application for this result has been submitted by Universitat Jaume I.
• The initial nanostructured and porous films of bismuth telluride alloys have been prepared.

The details of the summary, which include some images, can be found here.

Participation at the Virtual Conference on Thermoelectrics (19 July 2021)

This week takes place the Virtual Conference on Thermoelectrics, which is the main event on thermoelectrics this year, since the International Conference on Thermoelectrics has been cancelled due to the pandemic. We will contribute to the conference with three oral presentations:

• B. Beltrán-Pitarch, J. Maassen and J. García-Cañadas. Simple determination of internal thermal contact resistances in thermoelectric devices by impedance spectroscopy.
• M. Solis-de la Fuente, S. Castro-Ruiz, P. Rullière, S. Fantini and J. García-Cañadas. More than 4 times power factor improvement in a nanostructured Sb-doped SnO2 film produced by the presence of a solid electrolyte.
• S. Castro-Ruiz, M. Solis-de la Fuente, L. Márquez-García, B. Beltrán-Pitarch, A. Mota-Babiloni, F. Vidan and J. García-Cañadas. Significant power factor improvement in a hybrid solid-liquid thermoelectric device formed by Sb:SnO2 in contact with a chromium complex solution.

We will try to record the presentations and make them available at our Media section.

Our student Marc Carbó starts an internship at Linseis (12 July 2021)

Poster at E-MRS Spring meeting (30 May 2021)

This week takes place the E-MRS meeting, which will be virtual. Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas will present a poster titled Large improvements in the power factor of hybrid solid-liquid systems formed by nanostructured Sb:SnO2 and electrolytes. This is the first result of our UncorrelaTEd project that is disseminated. More interesting results will come in the near future.

Visit to Universitat de Girona (9 April 2021)

From the 6th to the 8th of April, Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas and our Final Year Project student, Marc Carbó, visited GREFEMA Group at the Universitat de Girona (Spain). During these days they were exploring how impedance spectroscopy can be useful to monitor thermoelectric generators performance. We would like to thank Dr. Toni Pujol, Dr. Martí Comamala, Dr. Lino Montoro, Dr. Albert Massaguer and Dr. Eduard Massaguer from GREFEMA for their assistance, support and nice manner.

New publication (6 April 2021)

A new publication from TESLab has been published in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer:

Thermal contact resistance evaluation of a thermoelectric system by means of three I-V curves.
Authors: Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch, Francisco Vidan, Jorge García-Cañadas.

The article describes how to determine the thermal contact resistance between a thermoelectric device and heat sinks attached to it by means of 3 I-V curves.

New undergraduate student joins TESLab (2 March 2021)

Today, Marc Carbó, 4th year student of the Mechanical Engineering Degree at UJI, has joined TESLab to work on his Final Year Project, which will be related to the study of thermoelectric modules performance and degradation by impedance spectroscopy. He became attracted by this topic after the talk given by Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas on 18/12/2020 (see below).

Plenary and 1st review meetings of UncorrelaTEd project (23 February 2021)

Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas obtains his permanent position at UJI (12 January 2021)

Our team leader, Jorge García-Cañadas, passed today the tender for a tenure position at Universitat Jaume I as Doctor Contracted Staff. We congratulate him for his well-deserved success.

Sergio Castro Ruiz joins TESLab (11 January 2021)

We have welcomed today Sergio Castro-Ruiz, who has joined TESLab as a new PhD student to work on the UncorrelaTEd project. He comes from Seville, where he obtained his Degree in Chemistry and later on completed a Master in Electrochemistry.

Dr. Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch leaves TESLab (30 January 2020)

Braulio, the first PhD student of TESLab, has finished today his activity with us. He is moving to the Department of Energy Conversion and Storage of Denmark Technical University (DTU) for his postdoctoral studies. We wish him all the best in his new position and we will definitely miss him.

Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas lecture on thermoelectricity for Mechanical Engineering students (18 December 2020)

Today, Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas gave a lecture at the 4th course of Mechanical Engineering Degree at Universitat Jaume I. He introduced thermoelectricity to the students, and also showed some of the developments performed in the field by the Thermal and Electrical Systems Laboratory. He finished with an overview of the UncorrelaTEd project. We thank Dr. Adrián Mota for inviting Jorge to give the lecture.

Recording and PhD Thesis of Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch (15 December 2020)

We have made available the thesis document of Braulio Beltrán Pitarch, which can be obtained from here, and his presentation during the viva:

Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch thesis viva (11 November 2020)

Yesterday, our PhD student Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch defended his thesis and completed his PhD. Congratulations to the new doctor!! This is the firts PhD thesis completed at TESLab. The event took place online and the evaluation panel was formed by Jeff Snyder (Northwestern University, USA), Álvaro Martínez-Echeverri (Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain) and Yasuhiro Hasegawa (Saitama University, Japan). The viva presentation was recorded and we will try to make it available in this website soon. Here are some pictures of the event:

Recording of Braulio’s presentation at the Forum on Thermoelectricity (10 November 2020)

Our PhD student Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch presented on the 29th of October the talk “Impedance spectroscopy for the assessment of thermoelectric modules and generators” at the XVIII International Forum on Thermoelectricity. On this work, Francisco Vidan, Jorge García-Cañadas, both from Universitat Jaume I, and Jesse Maassen from Dalhousie University, also contributed. The online presentation was recorded and it can be watched here:

New lab ready (23 October 2020)

The works to build our new lab have been finally completed. A few days ago, we moved and installed all our equipment and we are now working with everything in place. It took a while and we suffered significant delays, but it is now here at last.

Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas presents the UncorrelaTEd project concept (21 September 2020)

The UncorrelaTEd project Youtube channel has been opened with a short video of Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas presenting de concept of the project. More videos will be added from time to time, so subscribe to the channel to avoid missing them.

Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch submits his thesis (28 July 2020)

Our PhD student Braulio has submitted today his PhD thesis titled “Advanced characterisation of thermoelectric materials and devices by impedance spectroscopy”. Congratulations for your hard work and nice research. He will have his viva after the summer.

First stage of our new lab works completed (24 July 2020)

Yesterday, the company Romero completed the first phase of our new laboratory and researcher’s office. It took four days and it looks quite nice. We are really excited and looking forward to starting using them. However, the lab will not be fully completed until the end of August, when two fume hoods will be installed. We thank Romero for his nice work, and wait for them in August to complete the job.

H2020 projects event at Universitat Jaume I (24 July 2020)

A few days ago (15 July), our university organised an event to show its H2020 projects to the whole university, companies and industries, and the general public. Our project UncorrelaTEd forms part of these projects and Dr. Jorge García-Cañadas participated in the event where he gave, in around 3 minutes, an overview of the project. His participation can be watched in the video (in Spanish).

Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch presenting at VCT2020 (22 July 2020)

Our PhD student Braulio Beltrán-Pitarch will present tomorrow at 11:45 h (Brussels time) our latest results on impedance spectroscopy applied to thermoelectric devices at the Virtual Conference on Thermoelectrics 2020. These are the details of his talk:

Impedance spectroscopy as a tool for the detailed assessment of thermoelectric modules. B. Beltrán-Pitarch, J. Maassen and J. García-Cañadas.

Works start to build our new lab (20 July 2020)

The works to build our new laboratory and office space have started this week after a significant delay. Most of the benches will be soon ready. A second step will follow at the end of August to add the fume hoods, which are currently under fabrication. We hope to see in September everything ready.

Dr. Mauricio Solis joins TESLab (3 July 2020)

Dr. Mauricio Solis has joined TESlab today. Although it was expected him to join us on the 1st of April, the coronavirus situation blocked his possibility to travel from Mexico to Spain. Once Spain opened again the borders, he was able to fly. He will work as a postdoctoral researcher on the UncorrelaTEd project.

UncorrelaTEd kick-off meeting (21 January 2020)

The kick-off meeting of UncorrelaTEd has taken place today at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló de la Plana, Spain). Project partners [Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (IREC), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, University of Warwick (UW), Solvionic and Intenanomat) attended the meeting and discussed the main tasks to be performed during the following months.