'Atomic Cage' Material Converts Waste Heat to Electricity

From The Engineer - News:

Austrian researchers have "grown" an unusual thermoelectric material that converts heat to electric current and has some promising industrial applications A team of scientists at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have developed a super-efficient class of material that they claim could one day be used to turn waste industrial heat into useful electrical energy. According to the team, the material owes its properties to an unusual crystalline structure known as a clathrate, in which magnetic atoms of the rare earth metal cerium are effectively enclosed in tiny cage-like spaces.

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