English

Strong thermoelectric response of nanoconfined weak electrolytes

Soft Condensed Matter 2025-09-22 v2 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

When dissolved, weak electrolytes only partially dissociate into ions in a temperature-dependent process. We show herein that such incomplete dissociation yields an enormous thermoelectric response in an electrolyte-filled nanochannel along which a temperature gradient is applied. For this purpose, an extended version of the Nernst-Planck equations is developed that takes into account the temperature-dependent dissociation-association equilibrium. The results indicate that in this way, Seebeck coefficients can be achieved that outperform all previously reported values.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.20149,
  title  = {Strong thermoelectric response of nanoconfined weak electrolytes},
  author = {Rajkumar Sarma and Steffen Hardt},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.20149},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

25 pages, 5 figures