The new material is called thallium-doped lead telluride, and while that may sound more like a team of snowboarding stoners - it's really a metal - or a combination of metals actually - with the unusual property of being able to convert heat into electricity.
Such materials are called thermoelectric materials. They aren't new - but the problem is the ones we already have either aren't very good, or they are expensive and difficult to make. Joseph Heremans, who leads a team of Ohio State researchers, says they've come up with an inexpensive alternative that's twice as efficient as anything already commercially available. He says that's an important discovery for automotive engineers who would like to use the waste heat from the engine to create electrical power.
Heremans: If you can use part of that power for electric propulsion - for instance in a hybrid vehicle - you would actually gain fuel economy.
Heremans says the material performs best at high temperatures similar to those of gasoline engines - and could ultimately improve fuel efficiency by 8 percent or more. He expects thermoelectric power generators using the new material could reach the commercial market in as little as 3-5 years. Gretchen Cuda 90.3