A one dimensional hard-point gas as a thermoelectric engine

TL;DR

This paper explores a one-dimensional hard-point gas as a thermoelectric engine, introducing a new efficiency parameter YT, and discusses its potential despite currently low efficiency, offering insights for future engine design.

Contribution

It presents a novel thermoelectric engine model using a 1D gas with unequal masses and hard-point interactions, and introduces the new efficiency parameter YT.

Findings

Efficiency is governed by a new parameter YT, different from ZT.

The model demonstrates the feasibility of thermoelectric conversion in 1D gases.

Current efficiency is low, but the framework suggests pathways for improvement.

Abstract

We demonstrate the possibility to build a thermoelectric engine using a one dimensional gas of molecules with unequal masses and hard-point interaction. Most importantly, we show that the efficiency of this engine is determined by a new parameter YT which is different from the well known figure of merit ZT. Even though the efficiency of this particular model is low, our results shed new light on the problem and open the possibility to build efficient thermoelectric engines.