Defay Lab

Research focus

ERC Advanced Grant · 2023

Electricity generated from heat with nonlinear pyroelectric materials

Electric energy stands for 20% of the total energy consumed in the world, and this share is expected to reach 40% by 2050 as an outcome of the need to decrease our dependence on non-renewable energies. Beyond sunlight and wind, heat is another formidable and poorly exploited source of electrical energy. Indeed, currently 72 % of the energy produced ends up in waste heat - and it has been predicted that up to 13 000 TWh could be recovered each year, which stands for Europe’s yearly total energy needs! In this context, my team recently showed that 40 grams of nonlinear pyroelectric ceramics can generate more than 10 Joules of electric energy from waste heat in one single thermodynamic cycle…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.