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  • Perspective
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Sustainable heat harvesting via thermal nonlinearity

Nature Reviews Physics volume 6, pages 769–783 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Converting the pervasive low-grade environmental waste heat of approximately 200 EJ globally per year (equivalent to 27 Gt of CO2 emission) into electricity promises energy sustainability and would contribute to carbon neutrality. Heat harvesting technologies capture this waste heat through thermodynamic heat engines across various working media. Conventional heat harvesting approaches have primarily focused on limited incremental improvements in thermophysical output. However, advances in thermal nonlinearity and material anisotropy offer substantial gains but are often overlooked. In this Perspective, we delve into the role of intrinsic thermal nonlinearity with multiscale physical understanding to transform heat or thermal energy harvesting technologies from linear to nonlinear processes.

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Fig. 1: Nonlinearity is better than linearity.
Fig. 2: Fundamentals and benchmarks of nonlinear heat harvesting.
Fig. 3: Multiscale structure topology and mechanisms for nonlinear heat harvesting.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by A*STAR, RIE2025 Manufacturing, Trade and Connectivity (MTC) (M22K2c0081), the Advanced Research and Technology Innovation Centre (ARTIC) and the National University of Singapore (A-0005947-24-00). J.H. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11934007) and the Outstanding Talents Training Fund in Shenzhen (202108). T.D. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52472088). C.-W.Q. acknowledges support from Ministry of Education, Singapore (A-8000107-01-00) and the Nanotech Energy and Environment Platform, National University of Singapore (Suzhou) Research Institute via Science and Technology Project of Jiangsu Province (BZ2022056). This research is also partially supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore (NRF) under NRF’s Medium Sized Centre: Singapore Hybrid-Integrated Next-Generation μ-Electronics (SHINE) Centre funding programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Yi Zhou, Guoqiang Xu, Shuihua Yang, Cheng-Wei Qiu & Ghim Wei Ho

  2. School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Film and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

    Tianpeng Ding

  3. Nanotech Energy and Environment Platform, National University of Singapore Suzhou Research Institute, Suzhou, China

    Cheng-Wei Qiu

  4. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Thermoelectric Materials, Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Jiaqing He

  5. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Device Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Jiaqing He

  6. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Ghim Wei Ho

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  1. Yi Zhou
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  2. Tianpeng Ding
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Contributions

Y.Z. and G.W.H. conceptualized the manuscript. C.-W.Q., J.H. and G.W.H. supervised the project. Y.Z., T.D., G.X. and S.Y. researched data for the article. Y.Z. and T.D. conceived and illustrated the figures and tables. Y.Z. wrote the paper with input and comments from all authors. All authors contributed to the discussion and editing of the content of the manuscript before submission.

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Correspondence to Jiaqing He or Ghim Wei Ho.

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Nature Reviews Physics thanks Chris Bowen, Weishu Liu and Qi Zhao for their contributions to the peer review of this work.

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Zhou, Y., Ding, T., Xu, G. et al. Sustainable heat harvesting via thermal nonlinearity. Nat Rev Phys 6, 769–783 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-024-00771-8

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